国内英语资讯:Spotlight: China-Europe forum opens in Athens for better East-West cultural understanding_时事

国内英语资讯:Spotlight: China-Europe forum opens in Athens for better East-West cultural understanding

Greek Culture Minister Aristides Baltas said in his speech that the debt ridden Greece is working hard to restore its place in the world, and the forum is highly appreciated as more of a vote of confidence by the Chinese government and people in the potential of his country.

"In this course we want to cultivate all the old friendships and cooperation and at the same time to launch new friendships... It is fortunate that our Chinese friends chose Greece as the first country to launch their dialogue with Europe," he said.

Cultural dialogue helps build bridges to ease frictions in the political and economic field and collaborate to resolve common problems, many speakers agreed.

"We need to expand our cooperation to tackle common challenges. This is why we need cross-cultural dialogue. We need to learn from each other," Huang Ping, director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Science, said.

"The problems the entire world faces today are not only economic. They are first of all I would say problems of values therefore cultural," Konstantinos Tsoukalas, president of the Hellenic Cultural Foundation, told Xinhua.

"In this sense I believe there is no better start to promote dialogue regarding the future of our world than the dialogue between the two great civilizations," he said.

Monday also marks the 150th opening anniversary of the museum. Following a tour to the museum, accompanied by Baltas and Speaker of the Greek parliament Nikos Voutsis, Liu also visited the New Acropolis Museum.