Geneva, 14 October 1997. Greece, one of CERN1's founding Member States, inaugurated its first Industrial Exhibition at the Meyrin site on Tuesday, 14 October. After a meeting with CERN's Director General, Professor Christopher Llewellyn Smith, Professor Emmanuel Frangoulis, the General Secretary of the Greek Ministry of Industry, accompanied by Prof Emmanuel Floratos, Greek delegate to CERN council visited the DELPHI experiment on the LEP collider, guided by Andromachi Tsirou, a Greek physicist. The delegation then returned to the Main Building for the Inauguration of the Greece at CERN exhibition where they were joined by His Eminence the Metropolitan Damaskinos of Switzerland. In his inaugural speech Professor Llewellyn Smith, welcoming the first Greek Industrial Exhibition, spoke about Greece's pivotal role in the history of Natural Philosophy and science. The Archbishop recalled Greece's uninterrupted contribution to CERN, and underlined the symbiosis of scientific research and religious faith. Professor Frangoulis explained that "This is only the first step in breaking new ground. I want to encourage Greece to participate further in CERN. I believe that this is a good opportunity for the transfer of technology from CERN to Greek Industry; there will be opportunities for jobs, and economic benefits, but also benefits for Greek Science. CERN is world famous in its field, and must be supported by the European Community. It is essential that Greek researchers participate in these experiments both here at CERN, and in Greek Universities and Laboratories."
Professor Llewellyn Smith then accompanied the Secretary General and the Archbishop around the exhibition stands. The exhibition was organised by the Greek Industrial Liaison Office, who work to promote Greek products and services at CERN. Eight companies and institutes also represented Greek Industry:
- Aegek S.A., a general contracting company
- Anco S.A., a telecommunications and Electronics company
- Eveh Kypriotis S.A., a technical firm specialising in the application of high power industrial electronic systems
- IMMG S.A., working in experimental mechanics
- Institute of Microelectronics, one of the eight Institutes of the National Centre for Scientific Research "Demokritos" in Athens
- the Detector Instrumentation Laboratory, part of the Institute of Nuclear Physics
- Intracom SA, another telecommunications company
- Attica Technology Park, "Leukippos", in Athens
A further stand provided information on possibilities for tourism in Greece.
1. CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, Turkey, the European Commission and Unesco have observer status.