ATHENS — Εuropean Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas is to visit Athens and the region of Thrace between Thursday and Saturday, June 3-5.

On Thursday, Schinas is to meet the secretary general of the UN World Tourism Organisation, Zurab Pololikashvili and later make the opening speech at the 66th meeting of the UN regional committee of ministers for Europe taking place in Athens.

Later on Thursday, along with President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou and the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece Ieronymos, he will attend and address an event organised by Eurobank's new Corporate Social Responsibility initiative at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC) to highlight Greece's demographic problem and discuss ways to address it.

On Friday, Schinas is scheduled to visit the city of Alexandroupolis and tour the border station at Kipi, where he will have meetings with Frontex staff and other officials at the Evros river bridge (on the border with Turkey).

Later, he is to visit the Alexandroupolis General University Hospital, which is working as a Covid referral hospital and has received funding from the European structural funds.

In the afternoon on Friday, he is to visit the city of Komotini and the regional authority's headquarters and afterwards he will deliver a speech to economic and social bodies of the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region in the courtyard of the Komotini Archaeological Museum.

On Saturday, he is to inaugurate Eastern Macedonia and Thrace's Europe Direct information centre in Komotini and afterwards visit the Chamber of Crafts and Trade of Rodopi, where he will be made an honorary member.

Later on Saturday, he is due to visit Xanthi and tour the home where Greek composer Manos Hatzidakis was born and raised, which now serves as a heritage site, museum and cultural centre. During his visit to Xanthi, as the European Commissioner responsible for dialogue between religions, Schinas will have a joint meeting and discussion wtih the Metropolitan of Xanthi Panteleimon and the Μufti of Xanthi, Bilal Kara Halil.

After the conclusion of his visit, Schinas will depart for Ljubljana where he will meet with the prime minister of Slovenia, Janez Jansa, and other members of his government ahead of Slovenia's assumption of the EU Council presidency.