Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Dmitry Medvedev speaking with Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel
Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Prime Minister, this is your second visit to Russia, and your first visit to the Russian Federation as head of Government.
Welcome! I’m glad to meet you. I hope yours will be a useful visit, and a useful stay in our country. We will talk today, and tomorrow you’ll have a meeting with the President.
I’m not going to talk at length about Russia-Luxembourg relations. They are steeped in long, strong traditions. On the other hand, the current state of our relations requires us to re-focus on them.
I propose discussing economic and several other relevant issues.
I’m pleased to welcome you to Sochi. It is our southern capital. It is still warm here — the summer’s leftovers, so to say. I hope you will like it here.
Welcome!
Xavier Bettel (via interpreter): Thank you very much, Mr Prime Minister, thank you, distinguished members of the delegation for the gracious welcome you gave us today.
I’m honoured to come to your country as prime minister. There’s a personal touch to it — I’m glad to be in a country, whose people's blood flows through my veins.
I’m privileged to have an opportunity to visit the city of Sochi, which the Grand Duke of Luxembourg visited during the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Of course, I’m pleased to meet you in person, as well as other delegation members. Our ambassador and our colleagues told me a great deal about you.
I’ll be pleased to touch upon our bilateral relations, and all of the other issues that we believe are important to us, and which we believe we should discuss.
I came here to discuss everything that you deem important in a spirit of mutual respect, so that we can achieve a better understanding of our positions.
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