Greek economist: 'Economic center of gravity shifting eastwards' as Greece develops ties with Eurasian Union

"Alexis, let's get out of here!"

"Yes, but let's do it carefully; we don't want to act until we're sure the plan works."

Whether western European countries want it or not, the center of economic gravity is shifting eastwards, and the member-states of the Eurasian Economic Union as well as India and China are displaying sizable growth and are playing a greater role in global economy, the President of the Greek-Eurasian Business Council, Dr. Spyros Kouvelis said on Thursday.

He said it at a ceremony devoted to the start of the organization's activity.

"," he said adding that unless Greece took account of the persistently growing role of the region in the world economy it might lose a big part of this important market.

Dr. Kouvelis voiced the conviction that business ties should be untied from politics.

" [the EU sanctions against Russia over the turmoil in Ukraine - TASS] ," he said.

Dr. Kouvelis believes that the kick-off of operations of the Greek-Eurasian Business Council opens up big prospects for Athens in terms of collaboration with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

He said the council would cooperate in a manner that would utilize the EEU's business advantage.

Members of the council will make the first trip to Astana where the EXPO international exhibition will be held in 2017. It is important for Greek enterprises to establish working contacts with Kazakhstan already now, Dr. Kouvelis said.

Comment: A somewhat more elucidating article appeared in the last month:

'Alarm bells ring over Syriza's Russian links' - January 28th 2015

Soon after Syriza, the Greek radical leftwing party, swept to power this week, alarm bells began ringing in the capitals of Europe. However it was not finance officials who were rattled but Europe's defence and security chiefs.

Naturally! Take note, however, that when the here says "Europe", it really means the 'Two Towers' of the Atlantic Alliance: Washington and London.

The day after his election as Greece's new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras threw a grenade in the direction of Brussels: he objected to calls for further sanctions against Russia as a result of rising violence in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Athens went further. "We are against the embargo that has been imposed against Russia," said Panagiotis Lafazanis, the energy minister and leader of Syriza's far-left faction, according to the semi-official Athens News Agency. "We have no differences with Russia and the Russian people." [...]

While some diplomats and analysts see Mr Tsipras's intervention against more sanctions as an opening gambit in forthcoming negotiations over Greece's international bailout and debt burden, others point to it as another example of spreading Russian influence in southeastern Europe.

European and Nato intelligence officials are now poring over links between the Kremlin and senior figures from Syriza and its coalition partner, the Independent Greeks party.

"European and Nato intelligence officials"... In other words, the CIA and MI6.

The fact that the first foreign official Mr Tsipras invited to the Maximos Mansion in Athens on Monday was Andrey Maslov, Russia's ambassador, speaks to their concerns.

Mr Tsipras's previous comments on the Ukrainian crisis are also clear enough: in a trip to Moscow in May, he chief accused Kiev of harbouring "neo-Nazi" elements and denounced sanctions against Russia.

"It's a regression for us to see fascism and the neo Nazis entering European governments again and for this to be accepted by the EU," Mr Tsipras said at the time. "The EU is shooting itself in the foot with this strategy."

Other members of Greece's new government harbour similar views. Nikos Kotzias, the foreign minister, and Panos Kammenos, defence minister, have both been cultivated by figures close to Russian president Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

Mr Kotzias — a former Piraeus university professor — has espoused increasingly nationalist positions, developing a relationship with Alexander Dugin, the Russian nationalist philosopher, during several visits to Moscow, according to a colleague who declined to be identified.

Mr Dugin, who is close to several figures in the Moscow security establishment and last August called for a "genocide" of Ukrainians...

Not quite. Dugin is certainly brutally blunt at times, but he's not really calling for genocide. Here's what he actually said:

"Ukraine should be cleared of the idiots. Genocide of the cretins is suggested. The evil cretins are closed to the Voice of the Logos, and deadly with all their incredible stupidity. I do not believe that these are Ukrainians. Ukrainians are beautiful Slavic people. This kind of appeared out of manholes as a bastard race."

... in reference to the cretins running the country in to the ground, and the Nazi thugs who have been running riot across the country, not just in the Donbass/Novorossiya.

...was invited by Mr Kotzias to speak at an event in the Piraeus campus in 2013, where he extolled the role of Orthodox Christianity in uniting Greeks and Russians.

He said much more than that: Geopolitics of Russia. Athenian lecture. Alexandr Dugin

Mr Kammenos [Greece's new Minister of Defence, and from among the right-wing independents who teamed up with Syriza to form the new government] has also been a frequent visitor to Moscow. A picture shows him in the Russian capital two weeks ago, meeting the chairman of the Russian Duma's foreign affairs committee and the deputy chairman of its defence committee.

Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeyev, a sometime ally of Mr Dugin, and another pro-Kremlin figure who has developed close ties with radical European political movements, said he also knew Mr Kammenos.

Mr Malofeyev is subject to EU and US travel bans and wanted by Kiev for allegedly financing pro-Russia separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

"I used to travel to Athens often — before the sanctions," he told the . He said Greece has lived " [of international lenders — the EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank]".

"It is in the interests of Greeks for relations with Russia to normalise . . . For the Greek economy, for the Greek people, friendship with Russia is necessary," he added.

Anton Shekhovtsov, a Vienna-based analyst of Europe's radical political movements, has studied links between Russia and populist parties such as Syriza. "," he said.

Figures such as Mr Dugin have become very active in developing ties with radical populist European movements, Mr Shekhovtsov added, from the National Front in France to Austria's FPÖ. "There is also the issue of Nato's information security."

Fears over the links of Greece's new political establishment with Moscow are part of a growing set of concerns among European security agencies.

"," said one British diplomat who declined to be named. "."

Syriza campaigned two years ago for Greece's exit from Nato but has since toned down its hostility towards the alliance.