At the end of October, the 27^th Economist Annual Government Round Table conference was held at the Grand Resort Lagonissi 35 km south of Athens. The theme was “The great transition: Geopolitics – Environment – Technology”, and the discussions held from October 24th to 26^th assembled a heavyweight array of Greek and European government ministers, academics, leaders from industry and finance and senior staff of the Economist. Familiar domestic figures included former Defence minister and Chania MP Dora Bakogiannis, the mayor elect of Athens Haris Doukas and the new leader of SYRIZA Stefanos Kasselakis.

Of particular interest was the Prime Minister’s Gala Dinner, held on 30th October at the Athenaeum Intercontinental Athens, which featured a discussion between Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama who is best known for his book The End of History and the Last Man (1992). In that book he argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and free-market capitalism might signal the end point of humanity’s sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government. As he pointed out in a preamble to their discussion, he is also the current Director of the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy at Stanford University, from which the Prime Minister obtained his MA in 1993.

The discussion, moderated by the Executive Editor of the Economist Daniel Franklin, was an opportunity for Mr Mitsotakis to explain the government’s views on a number of issues of current importance, including the war in Gaza, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s growing influence in the world. Daniel Franklin began the discussion by asking the Prime Minister about the Greek government’s decision to abstain from voting on the UN resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza. The following is a transcript of his reply and parts of the ensuing discussion. Clearly the situation has changed in the last week, with an outcry in many quarters against Israel’s bombing of non-combatants, but so far the Greek government has not, as far as we know, made any further statement on the subject.

DF: … The overarching theme of our event is The Great Transition and clearly great transitions are happening all around us. Our conversation has been happening against the background of very difficult events in the Middle East of course. If I could start with you Prime Minister, to ask: Greece abstained in the UN resolution this week on a ceasefire. Would you like to explain that decision and your thinking behind that.

KM: … First of all let me clarify that during the UN vote Greece aligned itself with the majority of European countries. We had been very clear from the beginning in stating the obvious, that Israel has a right to defend itself, always in accordance with International Law. We have expressed our deep concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza and we’ve encouraged all parties to ensure that humanitarian corridors but also humanitarian pauses can be put in place in order for aid to reach those who are mostly affected.

We need to be very, very clear in stipulating that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, that it does not speak on behalf of the Palestinian people and that the only legitimate interlocutor when it comes to the Palestinian people is the Palestinian Authority which currently runs the West Bank. To that extent we tried to modify the resolution, but we were not able to include crucial elements which we think reflect our position. Hence we decided to abstain. And I think the abstention is probably in line with the overall position of the European Union as it was expressed in the most recent statement of the European Council.

DF: Being aligned with Europe is obviously an important factor in all this. Is there a role for specific Greek diplomacy in this crisis, or is it mostly going to be conducted through the greater power of the European Union?

KM: We were one of the few countries that were both present in the peace initiative convened by President Sisi in Cairo but also visiting Israel. I had a chance to visit and discuss with Prime Minister Netanyahu the situation on the ground. I think Greece is uniquely positioned for two reasons.

First of all we are with Cyprus the closest country to the Middle East. We have a strategic partnership with Israel, but we’re also very well respected within the Arab world. In that sense I think we are objective when it comes to our overall policy in recognising the basic principles which I previously described, but also in bringing to the forefront what in my mind can only be the ultimate solution to the Palestinian problem, which is somehow reviving what we term as a two-state solution, which is essentially the right of the Palestinians to have their own state without compromising the safety of Israel, and of course the right of the Jewish people to call Israel their homeland. I think that is why we have the ability to talk to everyone in the region.

Of course we don’t talk to Hamas, nor do we aspire to do that, because we are very clear in terms of defining Hamas as a terrorist organisation. There is no way one can imagine resolving this crisis without a strategic defeat for Hamas. I’m careful and I’m not talking about eradication of Hamas, but I’m talking about the necessity for Hamas to be defeated, but at the same time let me repeat how concerned I am with the humanitarian situation in Gaza. We are talking to several European countries but also to the United Nations. If there is a role for us to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea, given that we are with Cyprus one of the closest countries, we’d be very, very happy to do that.

The problem with Gaza now is that the humanitarian assistance that is necessary is significant. Only a fraction of that assistance makes it into Gaza, which makes it absolutely essential that the focus should be on getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza and to ensure that civilian casualties are limited to the maximum possible extent. One needs also to be very clear that we are in a very difficult, sort of unique situation where Hamas is using innocent people as human shields. On the other hand, Israel is a democratic state. The rules of engagement of a democracy cannot be the same as the rules of engagement of a terrorist organisation. That’s why the bar is much higher when it comes to what we expect from Israel in terms of managing what is a very difficult and complicated situation.”

DF: You spoke about the need to defeat Hamas. Assuming that were to happen, who then becomes the interlocutor for the Palestinians?

KM: That is a very good question and a topic that we have also discussed at the European Council. I don’t think it is too late to start discussing the future of Gaza and who can actually administer Gaza, assuming that Hamas is no longer in the picture. Of course I’m not stating something which is not well known to your audience – the Palestinian Authority has not demonstrated maximum effectiveness in terms of managing the affairs of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, and this is also one of the problems that we’re facing. One thing is certain, that we will try to play a role as a pillar of stability in the region and we will also try respect our alliances while being fair and just when it comes to addressing what is objectively a very complicated situation.”

DF: And you say it’s not too soon to start thinking about the day after the conflict is over. Is it your understanding or have you been involved in a creative search for what that might look like? There’s quite a bit of thinking about what it might look like, are you actively engaged?

KM: Let me limit myself to saying that I’ve been engaged in several discussions on this topic.

DF: OK, let’s broaden out the perspective a little bit with you Professor Fukuyama to look at the sort of world that this is reflecting, a very different world certainly than we had a few decades ago when you wrote The End of History, a very different world even than 5 years ago when we were last discussing here. What sort of world do you think we’re moving towards, is it bipolar, multipolar, some entirely new kind of model?

FF: … I think that one of the biggest changes in the world over that five-year period was really the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Because I don’t think that anybody really took the possibility of a big conventional war, and certainly not one in Europe, seriously prior to that point. I think that we were still living in a world where you could pressure people, you could use political … you could use economic sanctions and various other kinds of instruments.

But to actually take an army and to march it across a well-established international border simply did not seem like something that was done, and many people thought that that kind of mentality was spreading to the Middle East as well. I think that Vladimir Putin showed that unfortunately we are still living in this 19th-20th century world in which that kind of overt military aggression can take place, and this for example also triggered a lot of thinking in East Asia. I don’t think that anyone in Taiwan really took seriously the possibility that China could do to Taiwan what Russia was trying to do to Ukraine. And now they do, and they’re very worried about it. …

It doesn’t please me to say this but I think a lot of the mentality of the past 30 years has unfortunately got to shift gears into something that does accept the possibility of this kind of conflict. What makes it particularly dangerous is its multipolar nature. You have a kind of broad alignment between Europe, the United States … Japan, Canada, and an axis China-Russia-Iran. Its not ideological because these are not really ideologically aligned countries but there’s a broad division of the world, but the problem is there are many little powers now. There are many actors that cannot be controlled.

 A lot of people in Washington, London, Moscow want to think that everything is a result of one or other of the great powers manipulating these smaller actors but they’re independent. We don’t know really what the relation between Iran and Hamas was. Did the Iranians really push them, at this particular moment, to do something? We simply don’t know. It’s entirely possible they’re acting on their own but that means that a resolution of the conflict becomes that much harder and the possibility of escalation also becomes much greater.

DF: So I want to ask you both actually. Let’s take some of the things you’ve mentioned in turn. First Russia, then perhaps China by implication and then the middle powers, I think all are really interesting. On Russia, are you concerned that the events of the past few weeks have distracted attention from the need to support Ukraine, the cohesion of that effort which was already under some strain?

FF: I’m definitely worried about it because in Washington they can’t really handle two big crises simultaneously. It is going to distract both resources and attention, so there’s no question that Ukraine, I think, is going to suffer as a result of this. So it also becomes part of American domestic politics, because we’re in this bizarre situation where the Republican Party’s very pro-Israel but very anti-Ukraine all of a sudden. And so we can’t really deal with that constellation of crises in a coherent way because the domestic support base for doing things in different parts of the world are different, and that’s really not good for Ukraine.

After some further discussion, the issue of the “smaller actors” referred to by Dr Fukuyama was raised and the Prime Minister had this to say:

KM: Let me add one point which I think is important when you look at the countries in the region. We talk a lot about the hope that this conflict is not going to escalate. I think everyone, including Turkey I presume, would have an interest in this conflict being contained. But I think there is also an additional concern and that is that important countries in the region don’t get destabilised as a result of this conflict. Egypt in particular and Jordan, two key countries, are faced with significant challenges – economic, social – but at the end of the day they are pillars of a regional system of stability that I think we have an interest in terms of maintaining.

That’s why I’ve been advocating for years now about the importance of building a stronger European partnership with Egypt. Let me just give you one example: Egypt has six million migrants and refugees. There are no boats leaving from Egypt towards Europe, and I don’t want to imagine what could happen if a country with a population in excess of 100 million could get destabilised as a result of this conflict. So as much as we need to be concerned about spillover effects, my sense is that there is enough deterrent firepower in the region, I wouldn’t say to ensure, but to make it more difficult for this to happen. We should be equally concerned with making sure that we don’t cause new sources of instability.

At the end of the day this overall rapprochement between Israel and the Arab countries … I think was and continues to be the right approach. There was just one missing link, that it could not happen at the expense of the Palestinians. … So this idea that one can bypass the root cause of difficulties by forging economic ties … that proved to be a problematic rationale. So I would argue that what was achieved certainly needs to be preserved and strengthened, with the addition of adding a political solution to the Palestinian problem to the negotiating table.

A video of the full conversation can be seen on the Prime Minister’s YouTube channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBJXL35F7F4