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Although the COVID-19 pandemic and global border closures briefly slowed movement, recent years have seen a steady uptick in arrivals, particularly in Greece, with Cyprus also experiencing record numbers of irregular entries compared to previous periods. Both countries face complex, mixed migratory flows, still largely transiting through Türkiye but with a noticeable surge in movements originating from Lebanon and Egypt.

The reports produced under the ‘Mediterranean Migration’ project delve into these evolving migration dynamics and the policy responses in Egypt, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Greece, looking at the period 2021-2024. While these countries occupy different positions in the migratory journey—whether as points of origin, transit, or destination—the research reveals striking similarities in how they navigate and attempt to manage these roles within the broader regional migration landscape.

Country Reports:

Country Report Cyprus

Country Report Egypt

Country Report Lebanon

Country Report Greece

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Policy brief  Cyprus

Policy brief Egypt

Policy brief Greece

Policy brief Lebanon

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Extensive, Synthesis Report

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Triantafyllos Karatrantos, ELIAMEP Senior Research Fellow, explains the crisis in Kashmir and the conflict between India and Pakistan.

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Greece is entering a new phase in European unification. In addition to monetary union, we now have a defence union.

The Greek Defence Technological Industrial Base (GDTIB) is in a position to rise to this challenge. With the help of realistic public policies, it could be included in the top three DTIBs among the eleven frontline EU states, alongside those of Finland and Poland.

The successful integration of the GDTIB into the pan-European DTIB will strengthen the Greek Armed Forces, make the defence sector one of Greece’s economy most capital- and knowledge-intensive ones , and enhance Greece’s strategic alliances.

Specifically, the more that the GDIB exports to the pan-European DTIB as it grows by leaps and bounds, the more it will advance the productive and innovation capacities which Greece’s military deterrence needs in an era which has witnessed the return of ‘Big War’.

 

Read here in pdf the Policy Paper by Antonis Kamaras, ELIAMEP Research Associate.

Introduction

The acceleration of the EU’s emergence as a collective security provider, as well as the rising defence expenditures of all NATO member-countries, presents a unique set of opportunities for Greece’s Defence Technological Industrial Base (GDTIB). Namely, the opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of the Greek Armed Forces; to make a meaningful contribution to the transformation of the Greek economic model; and to strengthen the country’s strategic alliances.

For these opportunities to be grasped, however, concerted policy action is required from the Greek government in such domains as industrial strategy, military procurement reform, and the strengthening of the country’s R&D ecosystem.

This brief note will begin by summarising the main contours of the European Defence Technological Industrial Base (EDTIB), as it is shaped by national and EU policy across Europe and connecting this fast-evolving EDTIB to Greek military, economic and strategic imperatives. Secondly, it will provide a profile of the GDTIB and its actual and latent capabilities. Thirdly, it will situate the GDTIB within its peer group—the DTIBs of the eleven Eastern front-line EU member-states, including Greece—and argue that the GDTIB can and should be one of the three leaders of this group, together with the DTIBs of Finland and Poland. Finally, it will conclude by suggesting the policy set that needs to be adopted to allow the GDTIB to grasp the opportunities that are arising to the benefit of Greece’s national interest.

The opportunity: the rise of the EDTIB

The European Commission’s White Paper on European Defence[1] has catalysed the policy debate on the future of the EDTIB both ahead of and subsequent to its publication.

In it, the Commission was able to recommend two important funding instruments. First, the exemption from the excessive deficit procedure allowing member countries that want to increase their defence spending to do so without breaching the EU’s fiscal rules. The take-up can rise to a cumulative 650 billion euros, should all 27 member states make use of it. And, second, the 150 billion euro SAFE lending facility, offered at concessionary rates similar to Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) loans. Critics have, however, estimated that the two fall short of the amounts that would be required to catalyse defence investment in Europe. It has been calculated that, for France, a 10 billion euro procurement project would, if funded through SAFE, provide an 18 million euro interest rate subsidy per annum[2].  Turning to those EU member countries who could make use of the escape from excessive deficit procedure option, they would still worry that markets could respond negatively, thereby raising their borrowing costs. More importantly, without joint EU borrowing—and thus funding—for defence, the incentives will simply not be there for EDTIB to achieve the economies of scale and interoperabilities that have eluded it thus far.

That being said, the White Paper is arguably more important as a loud and clear statement of intent for a strategically autonomous Europe, rather than for the specific funding instruments it recommends. In our estimation, as a means of funding European defence at a satisfactory level, these funding instruments will soon be overshadowed by joint bond issuance by the European Commission, or another agreed vehicle for joint bond issuance such as the European Stability Mechanism. This is because:

• The new German government has decided to remove the debt brake and generously fund its defence effort; it is untenable politically and operationally, for the effort to rebuild collective European defence to be imbalanced due to Germany’s much greater fiscal space[3].

• The US will accelerate its disengagement from Europe’s defence, with US troop withdrawals from the Continent very much on the cards, in its effort to counter China’s pacing threat[4], and this accelerated withdrawal will further weaken the influence of those EU countries (such as Holland) that are hostile to joint bond issuance. Importantly, replacing the US’s strategic enablers, such as satellite-based ISR and anti-missile defence, is so expensive it will require pan-European industrial collaboration and funding.

• The question mark hanging over the US dollar as a store of value and the world’s dominant reserve currency[5] will make the arguments for creating what the Draghi report called a ‘common safe asset’[6] even more compelling. This asset is jointly raised EU bonds, with a virtuous circle making rising bond issuance cheaper and thus more attractive for    EU member countries to borrow collectively to fund the common good of European defence. Relatedly, the European collective defence that this bond issuance will fund will add further credibility to the euro as a reserve currency. Markets will perceive a strengthened European defence as a pillar of EU cohesion, and hence of the credibility of its collective borrowing.

We underline that trends that are already ongoing argue for an adequately funded EDTIB well into the future. Nearly all NATO member countries, under pressure from the Trump Administration, have committed to raising their defence budget at 2 % as a floor not a ceiling. To grasp the order of magnitude, it has been estimated that had all EU member states spent 2 % of their GDP on their defence in 2006-2025, there would have been an additional 1.1. trillion euros in defence spending over the 15-year period[7]. Relatedly, S&P has calculated that were EU member-states to raise their defence expenditure from 2.67 % of GDP (the current NATO weighted average) to 5 % of GDP (the extreme upper range of the increase President Trump is pressuring  European countries to make), that would have resulted in annual defence expenditure increasing from 242 billion USD to 875 billion USD[8].

In terms of the specific defence domains and imperatives to which this trend in increased funding for the EDTIB is connected, we highlight the following:

1.  The need for stocks of war materiel both to be replenished, due to the assistance provided to Ukraine, but also raised to the level whereby Russia can be credibly deterred. To put this in context, according to credible calculations, in purchasing power parity terms Russia’s defence spending exceeded the totality of Europe’s defence spending in 2024, with an estimated Russian expenditure of 145.9 billion $ equating to 461.6 $ billion in PPP terms and exceeding Europe’s 457 $ billion[9]. The EU therefore needs to translate its decisive collective economic superiority over Russia into a decisive superiority in war materiel by substantially outspending Russia in PPP terms.
2. The need to achieve strategic autonomy from the US, which means that a rising percentage of the procurement meant to establish clear military superiority over Russia will have to be directed at European companies (including non-European companies—be they US, Israeli or Korean—which have taken the trouble to indigenize their operations in Europe). This strategic autonomy encompasses both expensive and cheap innovation, meaning it ranges from R&D in sixth-generation weapon systems such as warships and fighter aircraft to AI-driven drones, as well as strategic enablers historically provided by the US, such as strategic lift, spaced-based ISR and communications, antimissile defence, and last-generation fighter aircraft, which now need to be developed and manufactured by the EDTIB.
3. The imperative to ‘produce and buy European’ to achieve economies of scale through industrial consolidation and joint procurement, as well as the interoperability of the EU’s Armed Forces. Economies of scale will enable the EU to buy more kit cheaper, while interoperability will make for a more effective collective deterrence[10]. Indicatively, Europe provided 7 types of Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) and 9 types of self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, compared to the US’s 1 and 2 respectively[11]. EU funding will serve these goals by subsidizing the intra-European collaborative production and procurement of defence articles, thus incentivizing both the manufacturing and the buying of EDTIB-developed and -manufactured equipment.
4. The need to raise fiscal commitments in defence to benefit European economies, in order to legitimize the diversion of scarce fiscal resources from social welfare to defence and to maximize direct and indirect wealth generation through an innovative EDTIB. This need also has a strong regional aspect, with national governments keen to ensure that the EDTIB makes a meaningful contribution to the economic wellbeing of their less well-developed regions[12].

In turn, the growth of the EDTIB and the way public policy structures this growth will afford the GDTIB the opportunity to contribute to vital Greek military, economic and strategic goals[13]. In particular:

• GDTIB sales volumes can increase manifold, product and services ranges can be expanded, allowing the GDTIB to invest in upgrading its production facilities, achieve economies of scale, and reinvest in R&D—thus enhancing the security of supply to the Greek Armed Forces and contributing to Armed Forces innovation, with the two altogether meaningfully strengthening the Hellenic Armed Forces’ deterrence.  In other words, a GDTIB that can be an important and effective member of the EDTIB is a GDTIB that can provide both a greater quantity and quality of war material to the Greek Armed Forces. Such a GDTIB accords with Greece’s need to deter against a ‘Big War’, as the disengagement of the US, together with the commensurately increase in Turkish revisionism, means that Greco-Turkish strategic rivalry involves not only two opposing Armed Forces, but also two opposing DTIBs[14].

• As a constituent member of the EDTIB, a dynamically growing GDTIB will most probably be the Greek economy’s most capital- and knowledge-intensive sector, and make a meaningful contribution to the transformation of the Greek economic model and its resulting ability to export high-value-added goods and services.

• Sales to other EU member states of critical war materiel (and its reverse: increasing Hellenic Armed Forces procurement from European firms) as well as participation in European defence supply chains and production consortia, will strengthen and expand Greece’s alliances with other EU member-states, thus enhancing EU solidarity with Greece in relation to the threat posed by Turkey. This alliance-building will not necessarily exclude Israel and the US, as their major defence companies will seek EU corporate partners in order to be eligible for EU funding. Importantly, the growing contribution of the Greek DTIB to the collective defence of the EU would also give Greece a correspondingly greater claim to that common European defence.

Considering all the above, we would claim that an effective GDTIB would, as a bona fide member of the EDTIB, be the industrial equivalent of Greece’s participation in the EU monetary union, as it would sustain Greece’s status as a core, not marginal, member of the EU, this time in the context of the EU’s collective defence endeavour.

The GDTIB: positioning and possibilities

We would argue that the GDTIB has been underestimated for three reasons: the corruption scandals that cast a shadow over the GDTIB in the post-Imia weapons procurement spree (1996-2008), mismanagement in major state-owned defence enterprises that created cost overruns and delays in executing contracts for the Hellenic Armed Forces, and the fiscal crisis that led to Ministry of National Defence (MND) orders to Greek defence firms drying up for over a decade[15].

Notwithstanding these factors, we highlight the following from the pre-fiscal crisis and fiscal crisis periods:

• At a time when other EU member-countries’ DTIBs were retrenching due to the post-1989 peace dividend dynamics, the post-Imia defence procurement spree meant that a number of both private and state-owned firms performed a critical subcontracting role in the manufacturing and servicing of highly advanced weapon systems, ranging from US Patriot batteries to German T214 submarines[16]. The value of the offset agreements involving GDTIB production in this same period, which lasted from the 1990s to the late 2000s, has been estimated at 2.5 billion euros[17] and involved industrial partnerships with four out of the eight top European defence firms: namely Rheinmettal, Leonardo, Dassault and Airbus.
• During the decade-long Greek defence procurement drought, the private firms survived and even grew on the basis of exports. The poster child of this development was Theon International, which manufactures night vision equipment, is entirely export-oriented, and counts some of the world’s most advanced militaries among its clients[18].
• The lack of national funding also meant that private and state defence firms, as well as university and research institute teams under the aegis of the MND, focused on PESCO and EDF funding. This placed Greece among the top 5 countries in terms of number of participants, right after the leading DTIB powerhouses of Germany, France, Italy and Spain. As a result, defence-related expertise has been accumulating, and the GDTIB is thoroughly familiar with the technologies and capabilities which the EDTIB has prioritised for future development[19]. Crucially, these technologies and capabilities address key challenges the EU must resolve to achieve strategic autonomy[20]—a strategic autonomy which, as we mentioned above, is no longer purely aspirational due to the behaviour of the second Trump Administration.
• The fiscal crisis catalysed an effective restructuring of the critical shipyard sector, with the Skaramanga, Elefsina and Syros shipyards being acquired by well-capitalised outside investors, and partial rationalization efforts being undertaken in state-owned firms in aerospace (EAV) and land weapon systems (EAS).
• Last but not least, a maturing start-up ecosystem (now more than 10 years old) has been created in Greece,[21] due to recognition that the Greek economy needs to become increasingly innovative if it is not to relapse into systemic crisis. Greek VCs are increasingly focusing on deep tech, and are more able to enter the defence market due to the European Investment Bank (EIB), which is its anchor investor, relaxing its dual use restrictions. The Hellenic Centre of Defence Innovation (HCDI), the less-than-two-years-old MND vehicle for funding defence innovation, which recently put out its first batch of calls, can now take advantage of this long-term effort in deep-tech start-up development.

In the post–fiscal–crisis environment, a geopolitically-assertive Turkey, the return of ‘Big War’ and territorial conquest in continental Europe, and the US’s accelerating focus on Asia, has kept Greece a top spender in terms of weapon-system acquisitions and upgrades[22]. While the first procurement wave of this period was off-the shelf, mostly from France and secondarily from Israel with little GDTIB input, it has laid the foundations of the Greek government’s current emphasis on 25 % GDTIB participation in all major procurement contracts with non-Greek firms. Importantly, the geopolitical motivation aligned with major procurement choices has catalysed engagement by the French and Israeli DTIBs with the GDTIB. In the former case, Group Naval shared on its own volition some subcontracting work for the Belharra frigates; in the latter, Israel’s IAI acquiring Intracom Defence Electronics, a leading Greek private-sector defence firm. F16 upgrades to the Viper configuration by EAV, and more generally the pick-up of Follow On Support (FOS) in the Hellenic Air Force and Army and Naval Aviation, have also boosted Greece’s aeronautical sector. There has been little activity, however, in FOS work in Greek armour, despite Greece having one of the largest, if not the largest, MBT and self-propelled artillery fleets in Europe.[23] In addition, as another bequest of the post-Imia procurement spree, there are at least two companies which are now part of the supply chain of the main German manufacturers of armoured vehicles—most prominently METKA, a member of METLEN, one of Greece’s leading industrial conglomerates.

Equally important for the GDTIB, over the last five to seven years, several events and processes have accelerated the development of Greek competencies in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4DI) domain, either in the private sector or through public and private partnerships outside core defence. We highlight:

1. The gathering pace of state digitization during and subsequent to the pandemic, with RRF funding prioritising digitisation. This has meant that both within the state, and in private sector firms contracted to implement a diverse set of digitisation projects, digital competencies have been deepening in Greece[24] with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector projected to reach 4.6 % of GDP in 2029, which equals 10.4 billion euros in sales. Public and private partnerships have been proposed and are being implemented to expand the pool of ICT personnel[25]. This investment has also included AI which, designated a strategic priority due to its undeniable significance, is receiving a mixture of national and European funds channelled to Greek research institutes.
2. The Greek state has also invested considerably in civil defence competencies[26], including cyber, as well as in border surveillance. In the light of the rising potency of natural disasters, cyber-attacks and population movements, these domains are both inherently synergistic and highly adaptable to the purposes of national defence.
3. The pandemic also catalysed investment by multinational firms, mostly in IT functions serving an international client-base, which has further refined and expanded the Greek IT skill pool.

The importance of such developments for the GDTIB can hardly be exaggerated; indicatively, in the context of Civil Military Fusion (CMF), even companies engaged in IT in Ireland, a country with minuscule Armed Forces, aspire to integrate themselves into the EDTIB[27].

Becoming a leader among the DTIBs of Eastern frontline EU member-states

Greece is one of the eleven EU member-states which have eastern front-line status; the other ten are Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus. Greece’s DTIB strategy should therefore aim to both present itself as, and aspire to becoming, one of this peer group’s three leaders, along with Finland and Poland.

On a geographic distance from Moscow basis, Greece it is the only comparable high spender in defence within the EU-27 which is not physically proximate to Russia. In context, in 2024 the only EU member-states apart from Greece to spend above 3 % of GDP on defence were Poland, Estonia and Latvia, with Lithuania hovering under 3 % and Finland just under at a still high by EU standards 2.5 %[28] (Cyprus’ defence spending is just below 2 %; it should be borne in mind that the Greek Armed Forces are also organised to defend the island in an event of military conflict with Turkey). Of course, Greek defence spending is so high for the same reason, though the threat is not Russia, but Turkey and its aggressively revisionist agenda.

Establishing the GDTIB in the top three of this peer group will—given the high legitimacy the group enjoys (not for nothing are the EU Commissioners of External Affairs and Defence from the Baltic countries, while the Report which informed the EU’s Preparedness Strategy bears the name of an ex-President of Finland)—allow Greece to promote an agenda that much more effectively within the EU that is facilitative both of its wider national defence effort and of the development of its DTIB.

On the military side, an effective Greek DTIB in the top three of this peer group would translate into being able to provide equipment and solutions to all the front-line states, given the commonality of the threat environment.

On the economic side, Greece can develop a common agenda whereby above-average defence spending in the front-line states does not develop into an inequitable core-periphery relationship with the countries with the stronger DTIBs (such as Germany, France, Italy and Sweden) being the major beneficiaries of the transfer of resources from EU member-states with a weaker industrial base and fewer fiscal resources to develop such an industrial base. Not only would such an arrangement be inequitable, and thus ultimately unsustainable politically, it would also be wasteful of the skills and know-how that front-line states can mobilise in shaping the cause of an innovation-prone EDTIB[29]. And if Ukraine has proven anything, it is that those nation-states which face the greatest existential threat also have the greatest incentive to innovate defence-wise.

In this context, Greece can partner with Poland and other Central Eastern European (CEE) front-line states to demand a partial recycling of their defence expenditures into their own R&D defence efforts. This would allow their DTIBs to mitigate the core-periphery last-link-in-the-chain conundrum—a policy challenge that has been particularly prominent for CEE countries since their accession to the EU[30].

On the strategic side, Greece shares a geopolitical hedging strategy with all the other front-line states[31], whereby they purchase some of their highly advanced weapon systems from non-EU defence firms, primarily from the US and secondarily from such close US allies as the UK, Israel and Korea. We mention, indicatively, the decision taken by Finland and Greece to buy US F35s, Greece’s prioritization of Israeli systems for its air defence, and Poland’s acquisition of US Abrams and Korean K2 MBTs. Greece therefore has an interest in developing a common agenda which: a) enables, under conditions acceptable to other EU member-states and premised on European indigenisation, the participation of the DTIBs  of non-EU member countries in the common EU defence , and b) excludes Turkey from this arrangement, for as long as Ankara  avoids joining the EU’s democratic and geopolitical canon. Indicative of the possibilities of developing a joint agenda of this sort is the annulment in 2014 of the sale of two Mistral amphibious assault ships to the Russian Federation by President Francois Hollande, following a concerted lobbying effort by the Baltic countries and Poland[32].

Is such leadership a realistic prospect, however, and are the benefits that would accrue from it feasible? The answer is a decisive yes.

Unlike Greece, all the CEE countries underinvested in defence in the 1990s and 2000s. This meant they could not benefit from the extensive industrial partnerships and knowhow transfer which, as we pointed out above, forms the foundations of Greece’s current DTIB[33]. The fact that defence was not a priority sector, given the peace dividend dynamics, particularly in Germany, meant that far less effort was expended on trying to incorporate the strong manufacturing sectors of CEE countries into defence-sector supply chains than, say, the civilian automotive sector.  Typically, countries like Bulgaria and Romania underinvested in their Eastern Bloc–vintage defence sectors, which mostly exported military equipment of Soviet origin in Africa and Asia. Accelerating efforts to rearm, particularly after the conquest of Crimea by the Russian Federation, could not make up for this lost time, while the most ambitious rearmament effort of all, by Poland, prioritized speed of delivery and/or cementing the security relationship with the US. Poland, which has undertaken the most ambitious rearmament effort of all EU member-states, has also experienced deep-seated politicization and limited R&D expenditure leading to the under-performance of its DTIB, in a situation not unlike that in Greece[34].

Limited interest in defence, or in the EU as a collective defence provider, as well as the small size of several of the eleven front-line states, also meant a limited uptake of EDF and PESCO facilities. In contrast to Greece, which belongs to the ‘vanguard’ category in terms of its PESCO/EDF uptake, Poland and Romania are in the ‘lukewarm’ category, while Finland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and Cyprus are in the ‘loiterer’ category[35].

Furthermore, extensive FDI undertaken by Greek corporations in Bulgaria and Romania post-1989, coupled with a leading Greek presence in the Cypriot economy, means that Greek conglomerates already own subsidiaries in these three peer countries that could be part of a Group approach in terms of defence-related production. No doubt, due to the growth of the EDTIB, there will be additional incentives for M&A acquisitions in defence, with Greek corporates taking the initiative as integrators and mobilisers of needed capital.

Last but not least, Greece is also number two among Eastern front-line states on the European Innovation Scoreboard, after Finland (admittedly, the gap is a large one)[36]. Among the larger front-line countries that can occupy the top three DTIB positions, Finland is number three among the EU-27 on the European Innovation Scoreboard, while Greece is number 20, Hungary number 21, Poland number 23, Slovakia number 24, Bulgaria number 26 and Romania number 27. This means that the Greek research ecosystem can sustain Greek leadership among the front-line peer group. Even more so if, through its own and the European funding facilities this paper recommends, it manages to entice to defence-relevant domains a critical mass of its US-based scientists, given that this scientific pool is the deepest not only within the front-line peer group but among all EU-27 member countries bar Germany, and only then in absolute not relative-to-general-population terms[37].

We would be remiss in this analysis if we failed to highlight Finland’s leading status among the ten front-line countries, Greece included, in terms of the governance, strategic focus and outcomes of its DTIB[38]. Finland’s DTIB has actually benefited from Finland’s strategic isolation, which has translated into efficient use of scarce resources, a focus on an extensive Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) effort which has resulted in the life cycles of weapon systems procured from abroad being maintained and extended, efficient niche strategies—in, for instance, ship hull design and manufacturing—which have addressed the particular needs of the Finnish Defence Forces, and a distinct lack of corruption and politicization in the DTIB.  This set of features constitute a compelling template for Greece and Poland. As they seek to improve the performance of their DTIBs, and considering that the status of the US as the ultimate guarantor of their territorial integrity is now uncertain, it behoves them to see their respective DTIBs as a genuine, not nominal, pillar of their deterrence —just as Finland has done for decades.

Greek leadership of such a peer group would, of course, require recognition by the other nine members that such a group does exist, and that it is useful for each and all of its constituent members for this group to exist. We would argue that Greece’s status as the only Mediterranean country, together with Cyprus, to be a front-line state in the EU’s east validates both these propositions for three interdependent reasons. First, because it makes the imperatives of territorial defence a cause that is not limited to the centre and north of Europe’s eastern border, but also extends to the south. Second, because it makes this cause agnostic to the origin of the threat, thus universalizing it, increasing its normative strength within the EU along, by extension, with the credibility of the EU’s collective defence—a feature even more important today when even Denmark’s territorial integrity is being questioned from the West (i.e. the US). Third, because it adds numbers to the particular concerns of front-line states—ensuring that defence funding integrates elements that are equitable, for instance,  and enable the full participation of all EU member-states in the innovation that European collective defence needs and from which the economies of EU member states can benefit.

Building on the foundations of Greece’s extant DTIB

Given its present status, the GDTIB can, with the appropriate level of government support, become one of the three leaders of the eleven front-line EU DTIBs. Achieving this would translate into major benefits for the effectiveness of the Greek Armed Forces, the competitiveness of its economy, and the strength of its alliances. We believe that the following set of policies can be decisive in achieving this goal.

1. Fully capitalize the state-owned defence enterprises, namely EAV and EAS, and lift all restrictions on their managerial authority by taking them off Central Government supervision, as in their ability to offer competitive salaries. Doing so will a) improve their performance in critical undertakings for the Greek Armed Forces, as in case of EAV’s F16 upgrades to the Viper configuration and FOS on the Hellenic Army and Hellenic Navy Aviation branches; b) secure the human and capital equipment resources, in the case of EAS, required to allow the GDTIB to partake in the restocking of critical munitions at the pan-European level; c) allow the GDTIB to participate in newly-founded pan-European consortia for next-generation weapon platforms, as much as in the creation of European strategic enablers that will replace those historically provided by the US.

In a nutshell, the Greek government needs to invest amply in order to ensure: (a) that these two firms’ spare capacity is fully utilised   in terms of facilities, production lines – including testing sites – and skilled personnel, as spare capacity is in great demand throughout Europe due to the decades-long running down of the EDIIB, from 1989 to 2022; (b) with additional funding and expertise-injection, their embedded knowledge and skills become a stepping stone to participation in pan-European consortia, not only as subcontractors but also as innovative developers able to capture part of the value added to be created. After an accelerated restructuring effort of this sort, both EAV and EAS will also become attractive acquisition targets to both Greek and non-Greek investors, thus leveraging the government effort via additional inflows of capital and expertise. The private-sector firms, by aggressively expanding the manufacturing capability of their defence subsidiaries through ambitious investment plans (as in the case of METLEN most prominently[39]) are proof positive of what these two state-controlled enterprises can aspire and plan to achieve within the EDTIB, if liberated from their present constraints.

2. If Thessaloniki-based ELVO has retained important production capabilities and licenses—meaning spare capacity that can be resuscitated-ensure that ELVO acquires a credible industrial owner so that it play a role similar to that of EAV and EAS in its domain of expertise, which is military vehicles assembly and their FOS. As per the White Paper recommendations, investors in ELVO and other defence firms in Greece’s regions could make use of EU Cohesion funding, but only if Greek central and regional authorities act fast and make full use of the scheduled revision of this funding source.

3. Double the budget of HCDI, so it can issue more calls and finalise more contracts in order both to accelerate the introduction of innovative technologies in the Hellenic Armed Forces and to give Greek defence high-tech firms a fighting chance to export their goods and services in the pan-European market with the added credibility of already having the Greek Armed Forces as a client. Employ this additional HCDI allocation to defence tech and dual use firms which can submit proposals, on their own or in partnership with research teams from universities and research institutes, to HCDI beyond the remit of the calls issued by the latter. By doing so, HCDI can catalyse the growth of the GDTIB as a growing number of companies and research teams will be able to consider potential defence applications of their technologies and knowledge. We mention here that dual use investments are included in the White Paper and accepted as bona fide investments in defence by the GOFOG classification system. Relatedly, Turkey is dedicating a bit more than 10 % of its public R&D budget to defence compared with a little less than 5 % in Greece[40].

We also note that enhancing the ability of Greek defence tech and dual use firms to produce asymmetric advantages for the Greek Armed Forces, and  enhance Greek deterrence, is synergistic with the defence effort of the other ten frontline EU member-countries; they face similar operational challenges, ranging from Finland’s archipelagic defence in the Baltic Sea to enhanced border surveillance in Poland.

Enhancing the funding of defence startups can have another advantage: drawing to Greece startups with diaspora founders who, apart from gaining access to cost-competitive skilled staff in Greece, may also gain a ‘passport’ into a growing European defence market. Also reserve fiscal space for these deep-tech, Greek-only procurements so that successful prototyping can be converted into production and deployment by the Hellenic Armed Forces without delay.

4. Expand the FOS budget to all functional and upgradable platforms on a value-for-money basis, so that the Hellenic Armed Forces rapidly restore their strength and the GDTIB both gains valuable expertise and is further integrated into pan-European value chains. This imperative is particularly pertinent with regard to land systems, as in the case of MBTs and self-propelled artillery.

5. Strengthen the scientific capacity of the General Secretariat for Defence Investments and Acquisitions by hiring high-quality permanent civilian staff. On the basis of lessons learned from Ukraine about procurement in wartime, revamp the MND’s procurement processes. Also judiciously adopt Israeli practices aimed at enabling civilian firms to design and implement defence solutions, so that CMF can be better implemented in the defence domain in Greece. With additional technical expertise and facilitative processes, the MND would be able to catalyse defence innovation undertaken by the GDTIB, and especially innovation originating from Greece’s dynamically growing ICT sectors, as highlighted above[41].

6. In view of the tumult in the US research ecosystem, create a fund designated to attract top Greek diaspora scientists specialising in defence-relevant domains ranging from aerospace to automotive technology to AI, so as to deepen the scientific capital from which the GDTIB can draw ideas, and to enable its integration into the most cutting edge EDTIB projects. We reiterate that Greece has, relative to its population, by far the most numerous and distinguished scientific diaspora (i.e. Greek nationals who received their undergraduate education in Greece) in the US among the EU-27.matching.

7. Be ready to offer matching funds, as per the recommendation of the PWC study on Greek manufacturing, in order to allow the major firms in the GDTIB to participate in the more ambitious EDTIB consortia. There should be a particular focus here on sea warfare, manned and autonomous, given Greek shipyards’ ability to exploit synergies with their civilian work, which itself benefits significantly from its access to the globally dominant Greek merchant marine. Put in place the foundations for this process now by reviewing and selecting for future support the most promising domains among the EDF and PESCO projects in which Greek defence firms and research teams have participated. Such matching funds should be from national and not EU sources so as to ensure timely decision making in accordance with a national prioritisation strategy.

8. In coordination with the ten other frontline EU member-states, which spend far more than all other EU member-states on defence, undertake the initiative to receive disproportionate R&D funding for defence from collective EU funding sources on the basis of the national weighted average spending on defence as a percentage of GDP over the last five years. Such an initiative needs to be contextualized by the fact that, in the growing European defence market, frontline states would tend to channel a growing percentage of their comparatively larger defence budgets to non-frontline states such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain (and the UK which, while a non-EU member, is asked to financially contribute to common European defence) which have the most highly advanced DTIBs. Include in this support scheme the proposed institution of the EU professor: leading scholars from member-states, either resident or repatriated, who will have their salaries paid directly by the EU, so they may be compensated above the low civil service salaries in their homelands, which would render their repatriation unfeasible.

We underline that, barring such remedies, the growth of the EDTIB will further entrench intra-EU disparities as stronger national DTIBs, and better-funded national research ecosystems, would be able to attract the lion’s share of the collective resources the EU allocates for defence.

9. Aggressively pursue military mobility funding opportunities from the EU, so as to further increase Greece’s significance for the EU’s common defence, and cement relations with the other frontline member-states while improving the transportation infrastructure in Northern Greece.

10. Utilise the recently established General Secretariat of National Defence to coordinate the ministries of National Defence, Finance, Development, Citizen Protection, Education, Merchant Marine, and Digital Governance in pursuit of the policy aims listed above, as well as others aimed at facilitating the growth of the GDTIB.

Concluding Remarks

Considering both existing and highly probable trends in the funding of the EDTIB, as well as the foundations of the extant GDTIB and Greek dual use competencies, it is well within Greece’s grasp to build one of the top three DTIBs among the EU’s eleven front-lines states in the years to come.

Doing so will prove decisive in upgrading the deterrence of the Greek Armed Forces in an era of ‘Big War’, creating the most knowledge- and capital-intensive sector in the Greek economy, and putting Greece at the core of the EU’s collective defence effort.

This task is well within Greece’s fiscal and reform capacity.

Judicious recapitalisations and reforms in the major state-owned defence firms will position them so they can contribute to the restocking of Europe’s war materiel and participate in the next-generation weapon-systems development and manufacturing undertaken by pan-European consortia.

An increase in funding to defence deep tech linked to reforms in weapons procurement can also rapidly boost the Greek Armed Forces’ asymmetric advantages and create export opportunities to the EDTIB.

Larger private-sector core defence and dual use firms can also grow further and deepen their links with the EDTIB on the back of FOS provided to the Greek Armed Forces, as well as their ability to act as subcontractors to Greece’s major foreign suppliers of highly-advanced weapon systems. With matching funds by the Greek state, they will be able to build on their FOS and subcontractor skills to add value, on their own or as members of consortia, through de novo weapon systems developed via common EU funding.

Finally, all three cohorts of the GDTIB stand ready to make use of investments by the Greek state and the EU in Greece’s research ecosystem, as in the case of subsidising dual use consortia including both firms and research teams, repatriating distinguished defence-relevant scientists from the Greek diaspora, and funding basic and applied research applicable to defence purposes.

Almost a quarter of a century ago, and following years of systematic policy effort, Greece reaffirmed its status as a core member of the EU by adopting the euro as its currency. It is now well within the nation’s capabilities, as well as vital to its national interest, to maintain this status by developing an effective DTIB which is instrumental to both national and European defence.

[1] European Commission, White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030, March 12 2025.

[2] Wolff, Guntram, Steinbach, Armin and Zettelmeyer, Jeromin, The governance and funding of European Rearmament, Policy Brief 15/25, Bruegel, April 2025.

[3] For the political implications within the EU of an unbalanced growth of the German Armed Forces, see Kimmage, Michael and David-Wilp, Sudha, The Zeitenwende is real this time – Germany’s defense upgrade is necessary but could upset Europe’s balance of power, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2025.

[4] For an analysis of the ‘Asia first’ policy strain in the US, crystallised in the recent appointment of Elbridge Colby as Under Secretary for Policy at the Department of Defence, see Brands, Hal, Putting “Asia First” could cost American the world”, Bloomberg Opinion, August 5, 2024.

[5] For a comment on these dynamics see, Martin, Felix, Europe can take advantage of King Dollar’s wobble, Breaking Views – Reuters, April 25 2025.

[6] Draghi, Mario. “The Future of European Competitiveness Part A: A competitiveness strategy for Europe.” (2024).

[7] Clapp, Sebastian, Reinforcing Europe’s defence industry, Briefing, European Parliamentary Research Service, November 2024.

[8] Bellesia, Riccardo, Gill, Frank, European Defense Funding: What are the options? Standard and Poors, February 13 2025.

[9] Mackenzie, Lucia, Russian defense spending overtakes Europe, study finds, Politico, February 12, 2025.

[10] Clapp, Sebastian, Delivorias, Angelos, Lazarou, Elena, Pari, Marianna,                Financing the European defence industry, Briefing, European Parliamentary Research Service, September 2024.

[11] See, Wolff, Guntram, Steinbach, Armin and Zettelmeyer, Jeromin, The governance and funding of European Rearmament, Policy Brief 15/25, Bruegel, April 2025.

[12] For a typical example of the political legitimation of rising defence spending see, Partington, Richard, Rachel Reeves vows to use defence spending to support UK’s ‘left behind’ industrial towns, Guardian, March 4 2025.

[13] The author has adopted the perspective of a national DTIB meeting a nation-state’s military, economic and strategic goals from Dorman, Andrew, Matthew Uttley, and Benedict Wilkinson. “A benefit, not a burden. The security, economic and strategic value of Britain’s defence industry.” Policy Institute at King’s Policy Paper (2015).

[14] For the need to prepare for a long war of attrition, and thus also deter such a war, see Freedman, Lawrence, D,. The Age of Forever Wars, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2025.

[15] For an account of the GDTIB see, Kamaras, Antonis, The Greek Defence Sector: Turning the page?, Policy Paper 126, ELIAMEP, February 2023.

[16] The following unpublished study is the most comprehensive treatment of this aspect of the GDTIB: Vlahou, Paraskevi, Defence Industry, Sectoral Study 222,IOVE, March 2009 (in Greek, unpublished).

[17] This figure has been tabulated in the following unpublished study: Mosholios, Panagiotis, Domestic Defence Industry Past-Present-Future, PASOK, March 2025 (in Greek, unpublished).

[18] See Theon International. Theon received new orders in January 2025 totaling 53 million euros, with embedded new options for an additional 95.5 million euros. It also joined the German Future Soldier Program on February 7 2025.

[19] See, Blavoukos, Spyros, Politis-Lamprou, Panos, Dellatolas, Thanos, Mapping EU Defence Collaboration – One Year on from the Versailles Declaration, Policy Paper 133, ELIAMEP, April 20 2023.

[20] For an analysis of the relation between these instruments and the EU’s strategic autonomy see, Fiott, Daniel, Strategic Autonomy: towards ‘European sovereignty’ in defence?, European Union Institute for Security Studies, November 2018.

[21]See, indicatively, Adams, Lucy, Greece’s tech sector grew 15 % in 2024, Tech.eu, January 2 2025.

[22] For a review of current and future procurement decisions by the MND see, Feistead, Peter, Hellenic defence procurement poised to embark on a new modernization plan, EURO-SD, April 28 2025.

[23] See, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). “Building Defence Capacity in Europe: An Assessment.” (2024).

[24] The growth of the ICT sectors has been well-documented in Greece, with the pandemic in particular and the post pandemic RRF funded state digitization acting as a catalyst. See indicatively, Deloitte, Study of the sufficiency of ICT specialists in the Greek labour market, December 2022 and Deloitte, The prospect of the ICT sector in Greece, December 2024.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Investments in civil defence have increased know-how of the use of drones and of sophisticated command and control systems while in Greece’s newly established National Cybersecurity Authority, a distinguished MIT scientist has assumed the reins. See indicatively, European Investment Bank, Greece to bolster civil protection with new EIB loan of 220 million euros, April 12 2024 and Ministry of Digital Governance, Michail Bletsas is the governor of the National Cybersecurity Authority, April 24 2024 (Υπουργείο Ψηφιακής Διακυβέρνησης, Ο Μιχάλης Μπλέτσας Διοικητής Της Εθνικής Αρχής Κυβερνοσφάλειας).

[27] See Webber, Jude, Tech Groups pivot to defence in neutral Ireland as EU rearms, Financial Times, April 28 2025.

[28] See, Wolff, Guntram, Steinbach, Armin and Zettelmeyer, Jeromin, The governance and funding of European Rearmament, Policy Brief 15/25, Bruegel, April 2025.

[29] For a need for such an arrangement see, Witney, Nick, Commissioning defence: how to build a European defence Union, October 30 2024.

[30] For a discussion in particular of Poland’s developmental cul de sac, due to the hierarchical supply chain system which has driven its growth post 1989, see Boguslawski, Jan, Economic dependence curbs Poland’s rise, Politico, June 22 2023.

[31] Based on the ‘European Defence in a New Age’ research project, to which the author has been participating, and which profiles most national DTIBs in Europe, see indicatively,  Molling, Christian, Helmonds, Soren eds, Security, Industry and the lost European vision, DGAP Report, No 10, October 2023.

[32] For a discussion from a Greek perspective of the Mistral Case see, Kamaras, Antonis. “Greece’s call for an embargo on weapons sales to Turkey.” Policy Paper, 44, November 2020.

[33] Molling, Christian, Helmonds, Soren eds, Security, Industry and the lost European vision, DGAP Report, No 10, October 2023.

[34] See, Minder, Raphael, Poland struggles to rearm for era of war on its borders, Financial Times, May, 4 2025.

[35] See, Blavoukos, Spyros, Politis-Lamprou, Panos, Dellatolas, Thanos, Mapping EU Defence Collaboration – One Year on from the Versailles Declaration, Policy Paper 133, ELIAMEP, April 20 2023.

[36] See, European Commission, European Innovation Scoreboard, 2024.

[37] See, Yuret, Tolga. “An analysis of the foreign-educated elite academics in the United States.” Journal of Informetrics 11.2 (2017): 358-370.

[38] For these features of Finland’s DTIB see, Suorsa, Olli Pekka, and Brendon J. Cannon. “Ensuring security of supply: pragmatic defence autarky and Finland’s defence industry.” Defence Studies (2025): 1-21.

[39] Findikakis George, METLEN’S plan for the next day in 12 slides, euro.2day.gr, April 29,2025 [Φιντικάκης Γιώργος, Το σχέδιο της ΜΕΤΛΕΝ για την επόμενη μέρα σε 12 διαφάνειες, euro2day.gr].

[40] Mejino-Lopez, Juan, Wolff, Guntram, A European defence strategy in a hostile world, Policy Brief 29/24, Bruegel, November 2024.

[41] Ukraine and Israel are the templates for institutionalising the integration of technologies originating from the civilian sector into Armed Forces operations through suitable procurement processes and technical support for innovative firms. See respectively Bondar, Kateryna, How Ukraine Rebuilt Its Military Acquisition System Around Commercial Technology, Center for Strategic & International Studies, January 2025 and Evron, Yoram. “4IR technologies in the Israel Defence Forces: blurring traditional boundaries.” Defence Innovation and the 4th Industrial Revolution. Routledge, 2022. 122-143.

• The EU Internal Security Strategy comes to complete the Union’s institutional security architecture until 2030, functioning as the inner circle of the ven diagram composed of the EU Strategy for Preparedness Union for preventing and responding to emerging threats and crises and the European Defence White Paper.
• The main feature of this new strategy is the concept and goal of Protection, which is why it is called ProtectEU.
• Security issues must be integrated into all EU legislation, policies and programmes, including EU external action.
• The Strategy reflects a broad list of threats, which are significantly influenced by the situation in the EU’s neighboring regional subsystems and, at the same time, have many interconnections with hybrid threats.
• It is based on four central pillars that function as umbrellas of actions: anticipate, detect, prevent and respond.
• The Commission will propose an ambitious revision of Europol’s mandate to transform it into a truly operational police service, better supporting Member States.

Read here (in Greek) the Policy paper by Triantafyllos Karatrantos, ELIAMEP Senior Research Fellow.

This Working paper draws on the emerging literature that has established that the employment rates and the earnings of men and women start to diverge once they have children, with women’s labour market performance deteriorating, while that of men’s left unaffected or even improving. This phenomenon has been dubbed the motherhood penalty (or the child penalty). The size of the penalty is affected by the choices parents make as regards employment and childcare, which in turn are affected by gender norms, instilled in women and men early in life, but also by public policies aiming to establish a better work-life balance and help working mothers and fathers combine bringing up a child with pursuing a career. The paper reviews cultural norms and institutional arrangements as potential determinants of mothers’ employment in two polar cases: Greece (where female employment is low, and child penalties large) compared to Norway (where female employment is high, and child penalties are virtually non-existent). The paper concludes with a list of policy recommendations, inspired by our understanding of the gradual emergence of family-friendly work-life policies in Norway, and informed by our awareness of constraints facing policy makers in Greece.

Read here in pdf the Working paper by: Manos Matsaganis, Head, Greek and European Economy Programme, ELIAMEP; A. G. Leventis Foundation Senior Research Fellow; Professor, Polytechnic University, Milan; Tone Fløtten, Senior Researcher, FAFO Institute for Labour and Social Research, Oslo; Chrysa Papalexatou, Research Fellow, Greek and European Economy Programme, ELIAMEP; European Institute, London School of Economics; Daphne Nicolitsas, Research Associate, Greek and European Economy Programme, ELIAMEP;
Assistant Professor, University of Crete and Bjorn Dapi, Researcher, FAFO Institute for Labour and Social Research, Oslo.

 

The Transatlantic Periscope is an interactive, multimedia tool that brings together expert commentary, high-quality media coverage, official policy documents, quantitative data, social media posts, and gray literature. It will provide on a monthly basis a summary of the most important news concerning the Greek-US relations, as reflected in the media. Below you will find an overview for March 2025.

According to Vassilis Nedos (Kathimeri), Greece may receive more than the originally agreed 600 US-made Switchblade drones as increased production has lowered costs, defense officials say. As mentioned in earlier versions of the Transatlantic Periscope brief, the Greek military had secured a deal for Switchblade 300 block 20 and Switchblade 600 loitering munitions worth $75 million, with $50 million funded through the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. However, with manufacturer AeroVironment ramping up production, the US has informed Athens that more drones could be acquired under the existing budget.

On March 18, 2025, a bilateral meeting was held between a delegation of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff (HNDGS) and the U.S. Marine Forces Europe and Africa (MFEA) at “Papagos” camp, in Athens. The HNDGS delegation was headed by 1st Infantry Division (1st ID) Commander, Major General Dimitrios Drosos, representing the Commander of the Hellenic Special Warfare Command (SWC), while on behalf of the US MFEA, the meeting was attended by its Commander, Major General Robert B. Sofge, accompanied by members of his staff and officials from the U.S. Embassy in Greece. The discussions focused on the framework and opportunities for joint training of the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) with the Greek marine in Greece, with the aim to further enhance the close cooperation between the Special Operations Forces of both countries in the near future.

National Defense Minister Nikos Dendias met on March 19 with US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Maria Olson at the Hellenic Ministry of National Defense. Dendias posted on X that they discussed “bilateral defence relations and the ways they could be further strengthened. We also exchanged views on the regional and international security challenges.”

US president Donald Trump celebrated Greek Independence Day, hosting an event at the White House on March 24. “The legacy of the Greeks is all around us. It surrounds us,” he told a group from the Greek-American community gathered at the White House before signing a proclamation recognizing March 25 as Greek Independence Day in the US, “celebrating 204 years of glorious Greek sovereignty and freedom.” “Perhaps the greatest gift we have inherited from this amazing culture is our incredible Greek-American community, now more than 3 million strong,” he added. The US president was accompanied by Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, who congratulated him on his re-election.

More at: https://transatlanticperiscope.org/relationship/GR#

Migration management has become a critical axis of foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean, moving beyond its traditional framing as a humanitarian or administrative challenge. Within Greek–Turkish relations, human mobility now functions as a means of exerting pressure, projecting power, and renegotiating geopolitical roles. The 2020 Evros crisis underscored this dynamic, triggering strategies that transcend the bilateral level and involve both European and regional actors. This report analyses the Evros crisis and the broader strategic approaches of Turkey and Greece through the lens of migration diplomacy, drawing on concepts such as issue-linkage and rent-seeking. It examines both coercive and cooperative tactics employed by the two states and the European Union’s often contradictory or defensive role. Finally, the report calls for a more resilient and institutionally coherent strategy that respects humanitarian principles and integrates migration into a broader vision of foreign policy and regional cooperation.

Read here (in Greek) the Policy Paper by Gerasimos Tsourapas, Professor of International Relations at the University of Glasgow; Non-Resident Research Fellow, ELIAMEP.

The White Paper on the Future of European Defence, released in March 2025, represents a landmark initiative by the European Commission to articulate a cohesive vision for strengthening the EU’s defence posture amid mounting geopolitical instability. Acting as a framework for the ReArm Europe plan, the document proposes mobilising hundreds of billions of EUR in defence investments, making use of national and EU resources.

The ReArm Europe Plan and the White Paper clearly succeed in politically signalling the EU’s renewed commitment to defence investment and military readiness. However, despite their rhetorical strength, four major concerns could undermine their transformative potential:

1. Coordination gaps: Without a robust coordination mechanism, national funds may be allocated to less pressing areas and may serve other – national and/or domestic – objectives and interests. In the meantime, the Union will not achieve effectiveness and efficiency unless it focuses on standardisation and interoperability.
2. Financial markets’ sensitivity: While the activation of the national escape clause offers fiscal leeway, it is unclear how the financial markets will react to increased national debts. Alternative instruments, such as the Defence Eurobonds or the European Defence Mechanism, could be examined.
3. Creative ambiguity: The Proposal for a SAFE Regulation includes references presented vaguely enough to allow for multiple interpretations and thus avoid frictions. In view of the negotiations in the Council, the issue of a third country’s participation in a procurement consortium must be further elaborated and clarified.
4. Democratic legitimacy and parliamentary oversight: Article 122 TFEU sidesteps the European Parliament, despite the latter’s willingness to further support the EU defence initiatives. Without adequate parliamentary involvement, defence investments risk alienating public opinion in a policy area which requires broad societal consensus.

All the aforementioned shortcomings reflect a deeper structural issue: the absence of a common threat perception and a truly common foreign and security policy. Without a coherent strategic vision at the EU level, member-states remain inclined to prioritise national over collective objectives and interests.

Read here in pdf the Policy Paper by Spyros Blavoukos, Senior Research Fellow, Head, EU Institutions & Policies Programme, ELIAMEP; Head of the ‘Ariane Condellis’ European Programme; Professor, Athens University of Economics & Business and Panos Politis Lamprou, Junior Research Fellow, EU Policies and Institutions Programme, ELIAMEP.

Introduction

In response to the new geopolitical and geoeconomic realities – including but not limited to the protracted Russian war on Ukraine and the Trump 2.0 administration – and following the earlier announcement of the ReArm Europe Plan, the White Paper on the Future of European Defence was published in March 2025. The White Paper outlines the path to enhanced EU defence capabilities and aims to mobilise hundreds of billions of EUR, detailing measures to finance and strengthen the EU’s military readiness.

The White Paper features well-intentioned objectives and its communication strategy was well orchestrated. It does provide answers to two key questions: first, where the money will come from and second, in what defence capabilities the EU is going to invest. Starting from the former, in the best-case scenario, national resources up to €650 billion will be mobilised through the activation of the national escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), which defines the fiscal governance framework for the EU member-states and sets rules for constraining national government deficit and debt. In essence, this clause will allow member-states to accommodate additional defence spending. The €650 billion will be topped by EU resources of up to €150 billion that will be gathered through the common issuance of bonds, as envisaged by the new SAFE instrument. In addition to these €800 billion, the White Paper proposes four additional -but rather vague and not quantified- ways to step up defence spending: a) redirecting existing EU funds towards defence (e.g., cohesion funds), b) contributions from the European Investment Bank (EIB), c) private investments, and d) ensuring financial predictability for the European defence industry in the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), currently under negotiation. Overall, the resources envisaged in the White Paper are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Envisaged resources for EU defence in the White Paper

 

Regarding the capability needs, the White Paper identifies seven priority areas: Air and missile defence, Artillery systems, Ammunition and missiles, Drones and counter-drone systems, Military Mobility, AI, Quantum, Cyber & Electronic Warfare and strategic enablers & critical infrastructure protection. Additionally, the Proposal for a SAFE Regulation (i.e., the €150 billion funding instrument mentioned above that accompanies the White Paper) refers to the following two categories of defence products, the common procurement of which will be funded:

1. Category One: ammunition and missiles, artillery systems, small drones and related anti-drone systems, critical infrastructure protection, cyber and military mobility, and
2. Category Two: air and missile defence, drones (other than small ones) and related anti-drone systems, strategic enablers, space assets protection, AI and electronic warfare.

 ‘Money Makes the World Go Round’: Financing EU Defence

National resources for defence

In 2023, the EU member-states spent €279 billion on defence, marking an almost 10% increase in defence spending compared to 2022 (€254 billion). Approximately one fourth of this expenditure (26%) was directed to research, development and procurement of defence equipment.[1] In 2024, the total defence expenditure made by the EU member-states reached (provisionally) €326 billion, an almost 17% rise compared to 2023, which amounts to 1.9% of the EU’s GDP and is very close to the 2% NATO requirement. These figures are in line with the broader, decade-long trend of increased military spending, especially fuelled by the Russian invasion into Ukraine in 2022.

Still, Europe is lagging in military deterrence and defence, and much more money needs to be poured to close the gap in terms of military capabilities, especially should the US truly reconsider its military presence in Europe. This is the underlying logic behind the proposal to create additional fiscal space for member-states to invest more in defence, bypassing the strict framework of the EU’s macroeconomic governance. The ReArm Europe plan calls for such a fiscal margin for higher defence expenditures (of up to €650 billion) through the coordinated activation of the national escape clause by the member-states. The national escape clause will apply from 2025 to 2028, for expenditure up to 1.5% of GDP.  The reference year is 2021, i.e., the last pre-war year when the EU member-states had spent €214 billion on defence. In other words, if the national escape clause has been activated and a member-state’s increase of military expenditure remains within the 1.5% ceiling, the excessive deficit procedure will not be launched, even if the total budget deficit exceeds the limits set by the revised rules of the fiscal and macroeconomic governance framework. The EU’s executive branch has invited all – interested – member-states to submit a request to activate this escape clause by the end of April 2025. The member-states’ requests will be coordinated by the Council in order to accelerate the process, and the recommendations activating the national escape clause(s) will be adopted by qualified majority voting (QMV).

On- and Off-EU Budget resources for defence

Besides the financial resources under the full control of each member-state’s government at the national level, there are two main channels of financing defence-related activities at the EU level: first, a direct budget line from the EU budget and second, off-EU budget resources that are collectively managed by EU member-states. As regards the former, Article 41 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) forbids, in principle, the use of the Union budget for operations having military or defence implications. Hence, the Commission’s main defence-related initiatives have focused primarily on strengthening the European defence industry and supporting the development of dual use infrastructure, with an allocated budget of approximately €10.55 billion in the current MFF.[2] These initiatives comprise the European Defence Fund (EDF), the Military Mobility, the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) and the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through common Procurement Act (EDIRPA). The European Defence Industry Programme, which falls in this category and is agreed to provide 1.5 billion over the period 2025-2027, has yet to be adopted. The legal basis for financing the European defence industry lays primarily in Article 173(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which touches upon the industry’s competitiveness. Other relevant TFEU articles that could be used to finance European defence-related projects comprise Article 179, on the improvement of the EU’s scientific and technological base, Article 170 on the development and interconnection of trans-European networks, and Title XIX on research, technological development and space policy. As far as the second channel is concerned, the largest defence-related, off-EU budget tool is the European Peace Facility (EPF). As depicted in Figure 2, comparing the two categories, the biggest part of the funds allocated to EU defence remain under full member-states’ control.[3]

Figure 2: EU budget and off-budget major defence-related tools

Created with flourish.studio.

The Proposal for a SAFE Regulation has the potential to make available up to €150 billion, a huge upgrade compared to the current situation, as shown in Figure 3. The SAFE Instrument operationally looks very similar to the EDIRPA, as it focuses on providing the necessary financial resources to procure eligible defence equipment jointly. However, financially, the two instruments are totally different as SAFE, in its current format at least, will operate through loans (and subsequently debt), whereas EDIRPA provides grants. Consistent with the general approach of EU defence funding mechanisms, the SAFE Instrument promotes a cooperative format. In this context, common procurement under SAFE requires at least the involvement of one member-state in conjunction with either another member-state or an eligible third country.

Figure 3: EU Budget funding for defence(-related) initiatives

From Reports to Action: Shaping the Future of EU Defence

A 2024 briefing from the European Parliamentary Research Service brought together the various proposals for the future of EU defence that were put forward in four different documents: a) the Mission Letter to the then Commissioner-designate for Defence and Space, b) Von der Leyen’s Political Guidelines, c) Draghi Report and d) Letta Report. The great majority of the proposals mentioned in the four documents have been integrated into the White Paper and the Proposal for a SAFE Regulation, as clearly shown in Figure 4. The interconnection between defence policy and economic competitiveness and the extent to which these two areas are mutually reinforcing are evident. The defence industrial policy aims to enhance military readiness, while also seeking to bolster economic growth, job creation and innovation. This relationship is highlighted in the Letta and Draghi Reports, both of which focus primarily on the economy, albeit emphasising the importance of a robust EU Defence Technological and Industrial Base. Most of their insights and proposals found their way into the White Paper.

The proposals that did not get through refer to sensitive political issues, such as the issuance of “Defence Eurobonds”, or older initiatives and/or institutional arrangements that are already in place, like, for example, EDIRPA & ASAP and the proposal for a Defence Commissioner. In addition, Letta’s proposal for the creation of a European Stability Mechanism (ESM)-like specialised credit line was not outrightly rejected but rather treated in a non-committing way. The White Paper vaguely notes that if the demand by member-states for funds for defence-related investments outstrips supply, then “the Commission will continue to explore innovative instruments, such as in relation to the European Stability Mechanism”.    

Figure 4: Proposals integrated into the White Paper/Proposal for a SAFE Regulation

Created with flourish.studio.

Critical Assessment and the Road Ahead

‘ReArm Europe’ and the White Paper have managed to raise awareness about the need to further invest in EU defence. Politically, they have sent a strong message about the Union’s commitment to security and enhancing defence capabilities. They have emphasised the necessity to direct money towards defence, reflecting a proactive approach and have signalled a level of readiness to act, especially in combination with the publication of the Preparedness Union Strategy. However, there are four main concerns that are hard to ignore:

• First, as discussed above, the lion’s share of the ReArm Europe plan will come from the national budgets. While the flexibility to use additional national resources is a positive first step, it remains unclear to what extent member-states will actually decide to invest in defence and, more importantly, whether those investments will be directed towards what is truly needed. In particular, the International Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG), which will be used to measure the member-states’ defence expenditures, includes a very broad set of different sub-categories. For example, COFOG Category 02 – Defence entails expenditure on military personnel, other non-combat defence forces and military aid. There is a genuine concern that, without a robust coordination mechanism, funds may be allocated to less pressing areas and may serve other – national and/or domestic– objectives and interests. To be more specific, there is a possibility that additional defence spending may predominantly be allocated to cover personnel costs rather than addressing critical needs, such as the development of advanced military capabilities or training. Achieving the right balance in order to guarantee long-term strategic readiness is crucial. Furthermore, efficiency and effectiveness in defence cannot be assessed solely in financial terms. Without a clear focus on standardisation and interoperability, progress will likely remain incremental rather than transformative. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has underscored the critical importance of ensuring that national armed forces are capable of operating together effectively and efficiently. As such, the European family has yet to decide how to foster standardisation and interoperability. To achieve this goal, different options exist:

1. Alignment of EU defence initiatives with established NATO standards, and/or
2. Strengthening the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) and the Capability Development Plan (CDP) to improve alignment between member-states’ defence planning and capabilities, and/or
3. Use/strengthening of existing mechanisms (for example, the European Defence Agency) or launch of new – potentially pan-European – initiatives (for example, the European Defence Mechanism, see below).

• Regarding the fiscal space that the national escape clause may provide, an issue not addressed is how the (already destabilised due to the tariff war) financial markets will respond to potential increases in debt levels across the EU member-states. Southern EU member-states have already expressed their doubts on the possibility of further indebting themselves, which will undermine – or further derail – the long-term sustainability of their sovereign debt. Instead, they favour the issuance of “Defence Eurobonds”, which practically entails the EU borrowing money from the capital markets and then distributing it to member-states in the form of grants. Needless to say, in this case, the identification of the distribution criteria will be challenging. Another option would be the establishment of an ESM-like intergovernmental mechanism, called the European Defence Mechanism (EDM), as described in a Bruegel proposal prepared for the Polish Presidency. To be more precise, this extra-EU intergovernmental organisation could act as a “planner, funder and potentially owner of strategic enablers”, allowing the debt incurred to acquire certain defence assets to remain on the EDM’s books instead of national accounts.
• Although “implementation, implementation, implementation” is important, one of the key criticisms lies in the creative ambiguity that characterises parts of the White Paper. Given diverging views among member-states, certain concepts are not fully clarified and allow for multiple interpretations. For example, the Proposal for a SAFE Regulation contains a European preference clause for the procurement source (at least 65% of the costs of the final product must originate from within the Union, Ukraine or EEA/EFTA states). However, the text seems to adopt an extremely wide definition vis-à-vis the potentially eligible third countries that may participate in a procurement consortium. In particular, it states that ‘the Union may conclude bilateral or multilateral agreements with like-minded countries, namely acceding countries, candidate countries other than Ukraine and potential candidates’. In that sense, all current and potential candidate countries constitute like-minded partners for the Union, which is – at least – disputable in the current geopolitical context.
• Finally, issues of implementation are closely linked to (the lack of) legitimacy. It is crucial to encourage public understanding and support for the need to boost defence investments. By having Article 122 TFEU as a legal basis, the Commission bypasses the European Parliament, although the latter has repeatedly positioned itself in favour of enhanced defence cooperation. For example, the European Parliament has recently proposed a higher budget for EDIP, indicating that it is ready to constructively back such defence-related initiatives. It has also called on the European Commission and the member-states “to enable and strengthen parliamentary oversight of EU external action…by involving Parliament in the proper further implementation and scrutiny of the EPF and the Strategic Compass”, thus highlighting its willingness and readiness to oversee key defence tools. The exclusion of the European Parliament from the legislative process could lead to mounting public criticism and a growing negative public disposition to increased defence spending.
• All the aforementioned arguments are deeply interconnected with the absence of a truly common threat perception and, by extension, the member-states’ unwillingness to establish a truly Common Foreign and Security Policy. As such, it becomes nearly impossible to effectively align national defence (industrial) strategies and investments. Obviously, in the absence of such a unified vision and foreign policy framework, governments prioritise national needs over broader pan-European strategic objectives. Can we realistically expect EU defence to emerge in such a political vacuum?

 

 

 

 

[1] Official data from the European Defence Agency (EDA).

[2] Different numbers may also appear due to inflation and changes in currency exchange rates.

[3] Other relevant expenditures comprise the national contributions to CSDP military missions and operations as well as EU Battlegroups. Although these are EU-led initiatives, the associated costs are, in principle, borne by the participating member-states under the ‘costs-lie-where-they-fall’ principle.

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The policy brief “From Migration Fears to Missed Opportunities: The Cost of Politicising EU Enlargement” follows upon the results of the report “The Rise of Radical Right and Eurosceptic Political Forces and the Impact on the EU’s Enlargement Policy.” It is part of the think nea – New Narratives of EU Integration initiative, led by ELIAMEP’s South-East Europe Programme and supported by the Open Society Foundations – Western Balkans.

As debates over EU enlargement intensify, migration has become a focal point for radical right and Eurosceptic parties across Europe. This brief by Ioannis Armakolas (Director, think nea – New Narratives of EU Integration) and Ioannis Alexandris (Research Associate, think nea – New Narratives of EU Integration) explores how these political forces frame enlargement as a migration risk, shaping public discourse and influencing policy decisions. The brief highlights how migration concerns are linked to fears over cultural identity, security, and economic stability, influencing public perception and national policies.

The analysis also examines the broader political landscape, including how national governments respond to these pressures and the role of public referenda in shaping enlargement outcomes. Drawing lessons from past accessions, the brief underscores the economic and strategic benefits of integration while cautioning against the long-term costs of stagnation. Offering concrete policy recommendations, the paper advocates for a proactive communication strategy that counters misinformation, highlights the economic advantages of enlargement, and reengages public opinion with a fact-based narrative.

You can read the policy brief here.

 

 

The South-East Europe Programme of ELIAMEP is a member of the IGNITA network which is led by led by OSF-WB.

 

 

 

 

 

You can learn more about think nea – New Narratives of EU Integration by visiting the website of ELIAMEP and OSF-WB.

 

 

 

Funded by: OSF WB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Transatlantic Periscope is an interactive, multimedia tool that brings together expert commentary, high-quality media coverage, official policy documents, quantitative data, social media posts, and gray literature. It will provide on a monthly basis a summary of the most important news concerning the Greek-US relations, as reflected in the media. Below you will find an overview for February 2025.

Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy and Openness Tassos Hatzivasileiou visited Washington to meet with high-ranking officials of the Federal Office of the United State Trade Representative (USTR). Specifically, on February 10, Hatzivasileiou met with the Deputy Assistant US Trade Representative Bryant Trick with Deputy Assistant US Trade Representative for Europe Michael Rogers and the official responsible for Greece, Dana Fager. The two sides discussed the further deepening of trade relations between Greece and the USA.

On February 23, 2025, the Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni held a working meeting at the State Department with the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Darren Beattie and the Assistant Under Secretary for Education and Culture Scott Weinhold. According to a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both interlocutors expressed satisfaction  “for the fact that this was the first meeting between the Greek government and the new Trump government”. The meeting focused on the efforts to combat antiquities trafficking, a major global problem linked to organized crime and terrorism.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis on February 28, 2025. In its announcement on the meeting between the two ministers, the State Department said Rubio reaffirmed the strategic importance of the US-Greece partnership, emphasizing that Greece is a “valued NATO ally and critical to regional stability.” Reportedly the two ministers also discussed the importance of “confronting illegal immigration.” In addition, the United States applauded Greece’s strong commitment to meeting NATO defense spending obligations. Finally, the State Department statement noted that Secretary Rubio welcomed Greece’s presence on the UN Security Council for the 2025-2026 term.

More at: https://transatlanticperiscope.org/relationship/GR#

• During the current decade, Greece’s development policies are guided and supported by both the Cohesion Policy through the 2021-2027 Partnership Pact for Regional Development (NSRF) and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”.
• The parallel action of these two programming and funding instruments represents an unprecedented development opportunity for Greece and its Regions, but raises important issues of strategy, coordination and management.
• This paper focuses on the institutional architecture and the governance and implementation mechanisms of the NSRF and the RRF and attempts to explore the implications of these institutional arrangements for public policy in Greece.

Read here in pdf the Policy Paper by George Andreou, Research Fellow, ELIAMEP; Assistant Professor at the School of Political Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (in Greek).

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the outcome of the June 2024 European Parliament elections, focusing on the characteristics of national political formations that are represented in Strasbourg and the identity of the political groups in the European Parliament. This analysis is based on two axes of ideological and political nature: (1) the political spectrum (Left to Right), and (2) the disposition of the parties toward European integration. The paper makes use of data from the European Election Study 2024 (EES) exploring EP political groups’ (lack of) homogeneity and the varying degree of theirr internal cohesion.

Read here in pdf the Working paper by Antonis Papakostas, former EU official; Research Associate, ELIAMEP  and Spyros Blavoukos,  Professor, Athens University of Economics and Business; Senior Research Fellow and Head of the ‘Ariane Condellis’ European Program, ELIAMEP.

The ALGREE project announces the publication of its first thematic paper entitled “The Journey of Albania’s Justice Reform: Progress Amidst Ongoing Implementation Challenges” authored by Bledar Feta and Çelik Rruplli. This publication puts under the microscope the judicial reform in Albania, which is one of the prerequisites for the country to advance its EU membership.

The report provides an in-depth examination of Albania’s judicial reform, consisting of four distinct thematic elements. The first part highlights the needs and shortcomings that necessitated the reform, providing an overview of the most critical stages of the process. The second part analyzes the outcomes of the reform, with a special emphasis on its two main pillars. The third part addresses the problematic aspects of the implementation phase, assessing the vetting process and the work of SPAK – the Special Anti-Corruption and Organized Crime Structure. The fourth and final part offers an overview of the findings from the European Commission’s progress reports on Albania for the years 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, providing an assessment of its performance with regard to Chapter 23 through a year-over-year comparison.

You can read the full paper here.

The video below presents the findings of this research as broadcasted on Greek public television. In his interview on Kallis Zaralis’s show “SYNORA” (ERT3), Bledar Feta emphasized the progress made since 2016 in Albania, when the specific reform that led to the creation of SPAK, the special judicial body for fighting organized crime and corruption, began. “Before 2016, no one imagined that high-ranking officials would pass through the door of justice,” Feta remarked, highlighting SPAK’s achievements while also noting the attempts to discredit it by both government and opposition members who are currently under investigation by the judiciary. Feta pointed out that SPAK is the only institution that enjoys the trust of Albanians, which stems from the international community’s involvement in its formation and operation, rather than the restoration of citizens’ trust in the judicial system, which still faces significant challenges.

This thematic paper is part of the multilayered project “ALGREE — Albania-Greece: Understanding. Connecting. Partnering.” implemented by the South-East Europe Programme of the Hellenic Foundation for Foreign & European Policy (ELIAMEP), and powered by the Open Society Foundation for Albania (OSFA) and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom Greece and Cyprus (FNF).

The publication “The rise of radical right and Eurosceptic political forces and the impact on the EU’s enlargement policy” is a result of the initiative think nea – New Narratives of EU Integration, funded by the Open Society Foundations – Western Balkans.

The initiative contributes to reimagining the EU’s engagement with the Western Balkans, as well as the region’s attractiveness for the EU in order to ensure a resilient EU integration strategy and ever-closer integration with a full membership perspective in mind.

The report authored by Ioannis Alexandris, Research Fellow, South-East Europe Programme, ELIAMEP delves into the recent electoral victories of radical right parties and explores how these parties are reshaping the EU’s political landscape, particularly regarding its enlargement agenda. Key themes include public discontent over immigration, economic disparities, and concerns about national sovereignty, all of which fuel opposition to EU expansion.

While the positions of radical right parties vary, their collective influence introduces complexities into EU decision-making. This report provides valuable insights for policymakers, researchers and actors navigating these challenges and shaping the EU’s future trajectory.

Summary:

This think nea – New Narratives of EU Integration report examines the growing influence of radical right and Eurosceptic political forces within the European Union (EU) and their implications for EU enlargement policy. As these parties continue to gain traction across member states, they are altering the political landscape and challenging the long-standing consensus on EU integration.

The analysis takes stock of the recent electoral victories of radical right parties, such as Georgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) in Italy and Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands. These electoral results reflect a broader trend of rising right wing Euroscepticism, potentially posing substantial challenges to the EU’s enlargement agenda. Key drivers behind this significant shift of the political pendulum to the right include public discontent with immigration, economic disparities, and a perceived loss of national sovereignty.

The report delves deeper into how these political dynamics could shape the bloc’s decision-making processes, particularly those involving candidate countries pursuing EU membership. The radical right’s scepticism over further enlargement raises doubts over the feasibility of integrating countries such as Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly in light of ongoing conflicts and political instability. Through a comprehensive examination of party manifestos, official statements, and expert interviews, this study identifies major patterns and trends among these parties with regard to their views on enlargement. It identifies the major enlargement-related concerns that may resonate with the public, hence influencing the EU’s future trajectory.

Even though several of these parties, including VOX in Spain and the Sweden Democrats, have yet to form cohesive views on enlargement or take clearly anti-enlargement positions, the issue is likely to become more politicised in the coming years. This is largely due to its linkages with other areas of political sensitivity for these parties, including migration, fiscal policy, agricultural policy, and national sovereignty, all of which are fundamental to their agendas. Building on its findings, the report concludes that radical right parties share core thematic concerns shaping their views towards EU enlargement. These can be categorised into five main driving forces:

1. Financial concerns: Opposing the financial costs associated with the accession of economically less developed states is a recurring theme among these parties. For example, the PVV in the Netherlands supports a “frugal” economic position, arguing that admitting less developed countries would place undue financial strain on net-contributing member states. Similar concerns are echoed by the Rassemblement National (RN) in France RN, AfD in Germany, SD in Sweden, and FPÖ in Austria, all of which represent net contributor countries concerned over further budgetary burdens.
2. Migration and security: Enlargement is also closely tied to migration and freedom of movement, which are key issues for radical right parties. The RN in its discourse often associates enlargement with increased illegal immigration and organised crime, a stance aligned with its broader domestic agenda. Both the AfD and FPÖ focus on anti-migration narratives targeting Muslim populations, while the PVV places more emphasis on cultural and social risks.
3. Foreign policy: Relations with Russia as well as concerns about geopolitical ramifications can also be a factor influencing the positions of these parties. The AfD’s longstanding tolerant –if not favourable- stance toward Russia drives its opposition to Ukraine and Moldova’s accession. Conversely, Italy’s FdI under Giorgia Meloni has so far adopted a pro-enlargement position, reflecting its broader pro-Western and NATO-aligned foreign policy strategy.
4. Popular support and electoral strategy: Public opinion and domestic political dynamics can also influence these parties’ positions. In Austria and Germany, where public scepticism towards enlargement is significant, the FPÖ and AfD have aimed to capitalise on these sentiments to gain electoral support. Additionally, these two parties have sought to appeal to specific demographics, formulating narratives that resonate with their target voter bases.
5. Concerns over EU functionality and sovereignty: Finally, radical right parties often link enlargement to broader discussions about EU governance. They claim that incorporating new members would necessitate institutional reforms, such as a shift to Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in areas such as foreign policy and tax policy, which they perceive as undermining national sovereignty. This could signal a departure from traditional anti-federalist methods that favoured enlargement as a counterbalance to deeper EU integration. Even though a shift to QMV could streamline decision-making, it might also exacerbate tensions among member states, providing fertile ground for radical right parties to amplify their Eurosceptic discourse.

The EU needs to navigate these complexities carefully, balancing the challenges posed by radical right parties with its broader goals of unity and expansion. The growing influence of these parties introduces complexities into the EU’s decision-making processes. On the one hand, their scepticism can slow down or derail enlargement policy, particularly concerning Ukraine and the Western Balkans. On the other hand, their focus on sovereignty and national identity raises questions about the EU’s integration model, potentially leading to alternative frameworks such as “multi-speed Europe” or associate memberships.

It is important, however, to mention that the dividing lines between support and opposition to enlargement among radical right parties are far from uniform. For example, Italy’s FdI has adopted a pragmatic, pro-enlargement stance emphasising economic and strategic benefits, while parties such as the Netherlands’ PVV and Austria’s FPÖ maintain staunch opposition. Hence, a much more nuanced picture emerges from the findings, where radical right parties can be categorised as ‘’supportive’’, like the FdI, ‘’ambiguous’’, like VOX, and ‘’against’’, like the AfD, when it comes to their EU enlargement position.

Overall, this report intends to serve as a resource for understanding the intersection of radical right-wing political forces and the EU’s enlargement policy, offering valuable insights for policymakers involved in shaping the future of the EU in the coming years.

You can read the report here.

The South-East Europe Programme of ELIAMEP is a member of the IGNITA network which is led by led by OSF-WB.

 

 

 

 

You can learn more about think nea by visiting the website of ELIAMEP and OSF-WB.

 

Funded: OSF WB

 

 

 

This policy brief discusses the role of Greece in the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), focusing mainly on those aspects related to infrastructure and ports and the global supply chain. It suggests a series of different actions and highlights different angles that Greece should take into account if it wants to be a major player in the establishment of the Corridor and its gateway to Europe/European Union.

– IMEC will be a game changer in international trade relationships, regional tensions, and political challenges.

– The main obstacles to IMEC’s establishment are the conflicts in the Middle East and other major national interests of key actors (such as the Chinese monopoly in the region).

– Focus is given to port infrastructure, as ports are pivotal to the global supply chain. India pays significant attention to its ports, while the Port of Piraeus is the largest port in Eastern Europe.

– The critical role and position of Greece are highlighted, underlying its role as a hub that connects India and the Middle East to Europe.

– Greece needs to invest in infrastructure development, build a skilled workforce, and attract foreign investments.

– Suggestions for establishing a successful commercial corridor between India and Greece are given, focusing on mutual interests and growth opportunities.

Read here in pdf the Policy brief by Dimitris Gavalas, Associate Professor, Department of Ports Management and Shipping, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and George Dikaios, Senior Research Fellow, ELIAMEP; Lecturer & postdoc researcher, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Introduction

Greece’s involvement in IMEC is a significant element of their strategic partnership, asserting that Greece serves as India’s gateway to Europe. 

During state visits to India in February 2024, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi engaged in discussions with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The leaders, among other topics, deliberated on enhancing cooperation under the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which “is a geoeconomic project that propels infrastructure connectivity higher than ever on the geopolitical agenda of global powers” (Sauvignon and Benaglia, 2024). Prime Minister Mitsotakis expressed that Greece’s involvement in IMEC is a significant element of their strategic partnership, asserting that Greece serves as India’s gateway to Europe. He further emphasized the necessity of achieving peace in the Middle East, stating that stability is essential for any initiative aimed at fostering greater prosperity in the broader region, that would benefit all participating nations. Greece’s role is essential to discuss, as it was not in the seven countries (India, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States) and the EU, which signed the initial IMEC Memorandum of Understanding in September 2023, during the G-20 Summit in India (Gonultas, 2023). Still, the IMEC is highly possible to go through Greece’s territory.

This policy brief unveils a series of opportunities and challenges that arise from the establishment of IMEC, focusing on Greece’s role and position. It first gives the bigger picture of how the global supply chain works, what role IMEC will play in it, and what infrastructure will be needed. The next section focuses on Greece’s role and opportunities, which might enhance Greece’s position within this particular cooperation, as well as the country’s potential gains. A section on what needs to be done to better prepare for the establishment of the collaboration between India and Greece follows. The final part presents the way forward.

Global supply chains, infrastructure and IMEC’s challenges

A supply chain can be defined as a systematic approach focused on the conversion of materials into finished products or services. It may also be perceived as a comprehensive network encompassing all entities engaged in the production and delivery of goods or services to consumers, including suppliers, manufacturers, transporters, distributors, warehouses, wholesalers, retailers, and customers. The modern supply chain is characterized by complexity, dynamism, competitiveness, and flexibility. Standard metrics utilized to evaluate supply chain performance encompass customer satisfaction, service quality, time efficiency, responsiveness, cost-effectiveness, and overall quality of output (Gavalas, 2024).

Supply chain management fundamentally pertains to the oversight and administration of such a network. In the era of globalization, numerous multinational corporations have established partnerships with entities located across the globe. The global supply chain is primarily driven by economic globalization, as companies endeavor to extend their supply chains into international markets. Such global operations typically increase business complexity due to the involvement of a broader array of stakeholders compared to domestic operations, necessitating the navigation of various political, economic, and cultural influences. Global supply chains function as fully integrated operations, thereby leveraging the distinct advantages offered by diverse geographical locations worldwide (Ma, 2020).

The global value chain can be defined as a complex network of international trade and commerce that involves multiple countries, regions, and industries. It relies on various trade routes, including maritime and road transport networks, to facilitate the movement of goods and services (Vasiliadis et al., 2024). Strategic hub ports like Haifa (Israel), Piraeus (Greece), and Red Sea Gateway Terminal (Saudi Arabia) play a crucial role in connecting different regions and facilitating trade. The global value chain is influenced by global trade relationships between countries, including trade agreements, tariffs, and non-tariff barriers, as well as financial ties between countries, such as investment and trade agreements.

The multimodal transport system of IMEC would enable the efficient and cost-effective transportation of goods. The system would also allow for the flexibility to switch between different modes of transport depending on the specific requirements of each shipment. For example, if there is a high demand for speed, rail transport may be preferred, while if there is a high demand for flexibility, road transport may be preferred.

IMEC aims to connect India, the Middle East and Europe, through a railway network, enhancing regional integration and trade. […] IMEC’s success will depend on navigating the complex web of international trade relationships, regional tensions, and political challenges.

The establishment of IMEC would respond to the global value chain by creating a new ship-to-rail transit network that will supplement existing maritime and road transport routes. IMEC aims to connect India, the Middle East and Europe, through a railway network, enhancing regional integration and trade. By reducing costs and increasing speed, IMEC seeks to challenge Beijing’s influence in the region and offer an alternative to China’s Belt Road Initiative (BRI). However, IMEC’s success will depend on navigating the complex web of international trade relationships, regional tensions, and political challenges. China’s existing influence in the region, through its financial ties with Arab Gulf states, may limit IMEC’s ability to challenge Beijing’s dominance, while regional tensions, such as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, may hinder the progress of IMEC and other regional integration projects (Monroe, 2023).

A major potential obstacle to the IMEC that is to be taken into account is that it does not offer a clear plan to address the Chinese monopoly in the region. The Greek port of Piraeus, a crucial link in the IMEC corridor, is already owned by Cosco, a Chinese shipping company. It is unclear whether India and the United States will attempt to buy stakes in Piraeus and shift the balance of power away from Cosco. Additionally, the deep financial ties between China and the Arab Gulf likely limit the ability of IMEC or any similar development project to challenge Beijing’s influence in the region (Khan et al., 2024).

Additionally, another challenge that needs to be considered is the conflict in the Middle East, as shown in the map below, as the area is an integral part of the Corridor. As it is to be expected, the conflict poses significant barriers to the advancement of IMEC. For example, countries that have not normalized their diplomatic relations, like Israel and Saudi Arabia, would have to work together in order to develop railways, as connectivity between the countries of IMEC has to be undisturbed. The same applies to the relations between Jordan and Israel, as the former would be the corridor-country between Israel and Saudi Arabia (Das, 2024).

(IMEC map, source: Vienna International Institute for Middle East Studies)

 

In terms of infrastructure, the physical aspect of IMEC would include railway lines connecting the United Arab Emirates to Israel via Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as well as electric cables to enhance digital connectivity, and pipes for clean hydrogen export. The multimodal transport system would likely involve a combination of maritime and rail transport. The Greek port of Piraeus would play a crucial role in this system, serving as a hub for cargo transportation from the port of Haifa in Israel to destinations in Europe and beyond. The port’s locality on the Mediterranean and its existing connections to European markets make it an ideal location for transshipment and distribution of goods (Datta and Misra, 2024).

For Greece, the port of Piraeus is well-positioned to play a key role in the IMEC project, and Greece should focus on leveraging its strategic location to benefit from the project (Pandya and Leal-Arcas, 2024).

India’s Strategic Steps Towards an Enhanced Port Infrastructure

In pursuit of the implementation of the IMEC corridor, India has taken steps from as early as January 2023 to acquire the port of Haifa (Israel). The acquisition was executed by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited (APSEZ Ltd.), India’s largest private port operator and a comprehensive provider of logistics services. This development came as part of a long-term strategy for India’s blue maritime economy, as introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration of the Global Shipping Summit and International Expo held on October 17, 2023, in Mumbai (Maritime India Summit, 2023). The envisioned horizon of the project is set with a vision towards 2047 (Reuters, 2023).

The plan encompasses several strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing port facilities, promoting sustainable practices, facilitating international collaboration, and executing major projects for the creation of Next Generation Mega Ports, which include the development of international container ports, islands, inland waterways, and multi-modal hubs. The total projected investment for these initiatives is estimated at approximately €900 billion, which is anticipated to generate a substantial number of job opportunities and reduce business operating costs, while mitigating environmental degradation.

Through the plan, India aspires to enhance its cargo handling capacities to 10,000 million metric tons per year by 2047, by addressing the increasing traffic demands and positioning itself among the top five shipbuilding nations of the world, through the establishment of shipbuilding and repair facilities in multiple locations. Over the past decade, the capacity of India’s major ports has doubled, the turnaround time for large vessels has been reduced to under 24 hours from the previous 42 hours, and coastal cargo traffic has similarly doubled, reflecting the ongoing modernization of logistics (Gavalas et al., 2022).

What should Greece’s role be within IMEC? 

As the focus of this brief is to understand the strategic role of Greece in the IMEC’s success, this part focuses on highlighting potential advantages of the process. Given the country’s geographical location between Asia and Europe, Greece could provide a critical and strategic link between India, the Middle East, and mainland Europe. By playing a key role in facilitating trade, infrastructure development, and regional integration, Greece can benefit economically and political, the latter by strengthening its ties with these regions. Below, some potential roles that Greece could seek to play are listed, as a guide:

• Logistics Hub: Greece, particularly the port of Piraeus, can serve as a logistics hub for the IMEC corridor, connecting India and the Middle East to Europe. This could involve the development of new infrastructure, such as warehouses, storage facilities, and transportation networks.

• Gateway to EU: As the largest port in Eastern Europe, Piraeus can serve as a gateway to the EU for goods and services coming from India and the Middle East. This would facilitate trade and investment between these regions and the EU.

• FTA Facilitator: Greece could play a key role in facilitating an FTA (Foreign Trade Agreement) between India and the EU. As a member of the EU, Greece could help negotiate and implement the FTA, which would benefit Greek businesses and industries.

• Infrastructure Development: Greece could invest in developing its infrastructure, such as ports, roads, and railways, to support the growth of trade and commerce between India and the EU. This would also create new economic opportunities for Greek businesses and citizens.

• Trade Facilitation: Greece could work with Indian and EU authorities to simplify customs procedures, reduce bureaucratic hurdles, and increase trade facilitation measures to make it easier for goods and services to move across borders.

• Investment Attraction: Greece could attract investment from Indian companies by offering competitive incentives, such as tax breaks, subsidies, or other forms of support. This would help create new economic opportunities and jobs in Greece.

At the same time, strengthening bilateral relationships and improving connectivity between ports can facilitate trade and commerce between Greece and India. This could be a potential step towards advancing the IMEC project, especially if India and Greece can work together to improve the efficiency and reliability of their port operations. Additionally, improving Greek-Indian port relations could also have broader benefits for the region. For example, it could help reduce transportation costs and increase trade volumes between Europe and Asia, which could be beneficial for the economies involved.

Balancing Political Priorities

Since 2016, Greece has cultivated a significant partnership with China, notably through Cosco’s investment in the Port of Piraeus. This relationship has significantly helped in the improvement of  Greece’s economic standing. As such, the country – in theory – would not stand to benefit from severing these ties. This parameter is one that the country oughts to consider, as it seeks to assume a central role in IMEC. Balancing these two priorities will require diplomatic finesse and significant, holistic strategic planning. This may involve renegotiating terms with Cosco to maintain control without straining relations with China.

On the other hand, and provided that the former has been dealt with in a productive manner, Greece stands to benefit significantly if it can leverage the IMEC project to foster regional economic cooperation with neighbors like Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania.

Navigating these dynamics, however, demands skillful diplomacy to manage the interests of the two major global actors.

Through careful balancing, Greece could position itself as a pivotal player in both IMEC and the broader regional framework, advancing its strategic and economic goals,

Focus on infrastructure and a skilled workforce

Greece’s port of Piraeus, being the largest port in Eastern Europe, if IMEC proceeds, is to play a crucial role. […] it’s indeed reasonable to suggest that Greece should enhance its domestic skilled workforce in areas such as logistics, transportation, and infrastructure management. 

Greece’s port of Piraeus, being the largest port in Eastern Europe, if IMEC proceeds, is to play a crucial role. Therefore, it’s likely that Greece will be a major actor in the implementation of the project, particularly in terms of logistics and transportation. In light of this, it’s indeed reasonable to suggest that Greece should enhance its domestic skilled workforce in areas such as logistics, transportation, and infrastructure management. This would enable Greece to capitalize on its strategic location, and potentially attract more investment and business opportunities. Moreover, having a skilled workforce would also help Greece to maintain its competitiveness in the region and ensure that it can adapt to any changes or challenges that may arise during the implementation of the IMEC project.

Essential steps to establish a successful commercial corridor between India and Greece

To establish a successful commercial corridor between India and Greece, several essential steps should be undertaken. Firstly, fostering strategic partnerships is crucial; collaboration between Indian and Greek governments, companies, and industries will help identify mutual interests and growth opportunities. Infrastructure development plays a significant role as well, and investment in modernizing and expanding transportation facilities—such as ports, airports, and highways—will facilitate the efficient movement of goods and people.

Negotiating and implementing bilateral trade agreements, particularly FTAs, can serve to reduce tariffs, increase trade volumes, and strengthen economic cooperation. Simplifying customs clearance procedures is also necessary to minimize delays and alleviate bureaucratic obstacles for importers and exporters. Furthermore, efficient logistics and supply chain management systems should be developed to ensure timely and cost-effective delivery of goods.

Encouraging foreign investment in both countries is another critical component, which can be achieved by promoting investment opportunities, providing incentives, and offering support services. As per the data provided by India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the value of goods imported from India to Greece during the fiscal year 2023-24 amounted to $1,055.17 million. This sum includes significant products such as aluminum, organic chemicals, transformers, and various other electrical equipment (Embassy of Greece in India, 2024).

Additionally, capacity-building programs that offer training for businesses, entrepreneurs, and policymakers in areas like international trade, logistics, and entrepreneurship are vital for enhancing skills and knowledge. Marketing campaigns that highlight the benefits, attractions, and opportunities of the Corridor can attract potential investors, exporters, and importers.

Risk management strategies must be developed to identify and mitigate potential trade-related risks, such as regulatory differences, currency fluctuations, and security concerns. Establishing a robust digital connectivity infrastructure, including high-speed internet and data transmission networks, would facilitate seamless communication and data exchange between the two countries.

Identifying competitive advantages in areas like production costs, quality standards, or innovation will further attract businesses and investors. It is essential that both governments provide necessary support and incentives to businesses operating within the corridor, including tax breaks, subsidies, or other forms of assistance. Effective communication channels between Indian and Greek businesses, governments, and regulatory bodies should be established to facilitate dialogue and collaboration. Finally, regular monitoring and evaluation of the Corridor’s progress will be necessary to assess performance and identify areas for improvement, ensuring its continued success.

The way forward

The discussions between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis during their state visits highlight the profound potential for collaboration under the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. The proposed commercial Corridor serves as a critical link that can enhance trade, connectivity, and regional integration among diverse economies, positioning Greece as a pivotal gateway for India into Europe.

Key actions such as developing strategic partnerships, investing in infrastructure, and negotiating favorable trade agreements are paramount for establishing a robust commercial corridor.

To realize the ambitious goals of IMEC, a multifaceted approach is essential. Key actions such as developing strategic partnerships, investing in infrastructure, and negotiating favorable trade agreements are paramount for establishing a robust commercial corridor. By simplifying customs procedures and improving logistics and supply chain systems, both countries can foster a conducive environment for trade, thereby driving economic growth.

Successful IMEC implementation hinges on achieving regional cooperation, brokering peace initiatives, and creating a balance of power that favors equitable economic engagement among participating nations.

Moreover, the challenges posed by existing geopolitical dynamics, notably China’s significant influence in the region and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, must be addressed strategically. Successful IMEC implementation hinges on achieving regional cooperation, brokering peace initiatives, and creating a balance of power that favors equitable economic engagement among participating nations.

Greece’s role as a logistical hub and trade facilitator is indispensable. The port of Piraeus not only complements the IMEC’s shipping routes but also positions Greece favorably to attract investments, foster regional integration, and promote sustainable development practices. Navigating the complexities of international trade relationships while maintaining a focus on green initiatives can enhance IMEC’s viability and public acceptance.

The IMEC presents a unique opportunity for India and Greece to strengthen their bilateral ties while playing a significant role in reshaping regional trade dynamics. 

The IMEC presents a unique opportunity for India and Greece to strengthen their bilateral ties while playing a significant role in reshaping regional trade dynamics. With concerted efforts in infrastructure development, strategic collaboration, and diplomatic negotiations, the IMEC could become a transformative framework benefiting not just the participating nations but also the broader global economy.

As a final comment, it is likely that the project would require significant investment from governments and private companies in terms of who will pay for the implementation of IMEC. The endorsement of IMEC by several countries, including India, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (and France, Germany, Italy, and the United States), suggests that they may be willing to contribute financially or otherwise to its development. The project’s potential economic benefits, such as cutting costs and increasing speed of cargo shipment, could attract private investment and funding from companies and institutions interested in the region’s growth and development.

References

Das, D. (2024). Revisiting the contours of the evolving Middle Eastern order through the India-Middle East-EU Corridor: mapping India’s scopes and limitations. Asian Journal of Political Science, 32(1), 35-56.

Datta, B., & Misra, S. (2024). Port Efficiency and Infrastructure Development: Catalysts for the India-Middle East-European Union Economic Corridor. In Global Cargo Industry: Resilience of Asia-Pacific Shipping Industries (pp. 1-34). IGI Global.

Embassy of Greece in India. (2024). Greek Exports to India in fiscal year 2023-2024, Office of Economic & Commercial Affairs, Available online at https://agora.mfa.gr/infofiles-menu/infofile/88418, last accessed November 14th 2024.

Gavalas, D. (2024). Does sustainability reporting affect firm performance? Evidence from the port sector. Maritime Technology and Research, 6(2), 266092-266092.

Gavalas, D., Syriopoulos, T., & Tsatsaronis, M. (2022). Assessing key performance indicators in the shipbuilding industry; an MCDM approach. Maritime Policy & Management, 49(4), 463-491.

Gonultas, B. (2023). 7 countries, EU sign memorandum of understanding for trade corridor linking Europe, Middle East and India, Available online at https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/7-countries-eu-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-for-trade-corridor-linking-europe-middle-east-and-india/2988027, last accessed January 20th 2025.

Khan, K. H., Bastanifar, I., Omidi, A., & Khan, Z. (2024). Integrating gravity models and network analysis in logistical strategic planning: a case of the India Middle-East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Maritime Economics & Logistics, 1-36.

Ma, S. (2020). Economics of maritime business. Routledge.

Maritime India Summit. (2023). Available online at https://maritimeindiasummit.com/, last accessed November 1st 2024.

Monroe, S. (2023). The India‒Middle East‒Europe economic corridor: an early assessment. In Economic Research Forum.

Pandya, D., & Leal-Arcas, R. (2024). India-EU Relations: geopolitics, energy and trade. In Research Handbook on EU Energy Law and Policy (pp. 299-321). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Reuters. (2023). Adani-led group completes purchase of Israel’s Haifa Port, Available online at https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/adani-led-group-completes-purchase-israels-haifa-port-2023-01-10/, last accessed November 13th 2024.

Sauvignon, F. & Benaglia, S. (2024). Why IMEC needs to change course in the EuroMed: To invest in the true drivers of peace and economic security. European Institute of the Mediterranean, EUROMESCO Paper no. 71.

The Maritime Standard. (2024). Large scale Gujarat investments planned by DP World, Available online at https://www.themaritimestandard.com/large-scale-gujarat-investments-planned-by-dp-world/, last accessed November 7th 2024.

Vasiliadis, L., Gavalas, D., & Tsitsakis, C. (2024). Competitive strategies and integration expanses in the large shipping container industry during an era of consecutive global crises. Maritime Technology and Research, 6(1), 266413-266413.

Analyzing data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we explore macro-level effects of the 2015 refugee crisis on public attitudes toward immigration in Greece. Contrary to the belief that the crisis hardened Greeks’ attitudes toward immigration, we find no evidence of a significant negative effect that persists over time. Indeed, we observe a slight improvement in immigration attitudes since a low point that occurred during Greece’s foreign debt crisis. More broadly, the commonly held belief that European publics are becoming more hostile toward immigrants over time is a misperception of reality. We instead observe a slight improvement in attitudes since the refugee crisis of 2015.

Read here in pdf the Working Paper by Nicholas Sambanis, Kalsi Family Professor of Political Science, and Director, Identity and Conflict Lab, Yale University, ELIAMEP Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow and Carlos di Bonifacio, Research Affiliate, Identity & Conflict Lab, Yale University.

The Transatlantic Periscope is an interactive, multimedia tool that brings together expert commentary, high-quality media coverage, official policy documents, quantitative data, social media posts, and gray literature. It will provide on a monthly basis a summary of the most important news concerning the Greek-US relations, as reflected in the media. Below you will find an overview for December 2024.

On 4 December, 2024, a fifteen-member delegation from the Office of Global Partnerships of the US Department of State met with representatives of Greek business groups at the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace. Discussions focused on the formation of intergovernmental business and academic collaborations in the field of the green transition and renewable energy sources. Representatives of Greek business groups outlined their plans in the RES sector, including investment plans.

With regard to the upcoming transition in the United States, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Michael Kratsios, a Greek-American with roots from the island of Chios and the northern city of Kastoria, as Assistant to the President for Science & Technology and as the new Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Kratsios’ nomination as OSTP Director will need to be confirmed by the Senate. Furthermore, Greek-American Michael J. Rigas has been nominated by President Trump as Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.

On December 10, 2024, Trump tapped Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Fox News host and former prosecutor in San Francisco and Los Angeles, to become US ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle’s nomination requires Senate confirmation. In an exclusive statement to ERTNews, Guilfoyle said she is excited to collaborate with the Greek government and would work to ensure that the strong relations between the two countries continue to deepen, under the leadership of President Trump.

On defence matters, according to Reuters, Athens has drafted a multi-billion, 10-year purchasing plan that includes, among others, acquiring up to 40 new F-35 fighter jets from the US. One of the officials noted that on December 13, 2024,the Government Council for National Security (KYSEA), the country’s top decision-making body on foreign affairs and defence matters, approved the procurement of US-made Switchblade drones, made by AeroVironment.

More at: https://transatlanticperiscope.org/relationship/GR#

In the annual Special Edition “ELIAMEP Outlook – Predictions for 2025”, sixteen of ELIAMEP’s leading analysts and associates present their predictions for the New Year. They assess the main challenges, the trends, the risks, the potential opportunities and inflection points of 2025 for Greece, Europe, the Mediterranean and the world.

You can read the paper here (in Greek).

The paper is currently available in Greek. The English translation will be published on January 10. 

This policy paper will argue that, after the collapse of the junta in 1974, civil-military relations in Greece primarily involved the consolidation of democratic rule. In that respect, Greece resembled many other countries which failed in their post-authoritarian phase to engage in second-generation reforms that would focus on improving the efficiency of their Armed Forces and their ability to fulfil the missions mandated by democratic rule. In the case of Greece, partisanship in officer promotions, the lack of a sophisticated civilian technocracy in the Ministry of National Defence, and insufficient oversight by Parliament and civil society, among other factors, have resulted in timid reforms of the nation’s Armed Forces. While the post-fiscal-crisis policy environment has catalysed positive changes in Greece’s civil-military relations, much still remains to be done before civil-military relations can be relied upon to meet the country’s significant national security challenges.

• This policy paper will evaluate Greece’s civil-military relations from the perspective of the transition to democratic rule subsequent to the collapse of the military junta fifty years ago.
• A comparative perspective will be adopted as, over the same fifty-year period, civil-military relations in many countries in Latin America, Central Europe and Asia evolved in a similar fashion to those of Greece.
• A closer examination of the Greek case will underline similarities as well as differences: the former in areas such as conscription and joint operations, the latter in areas including participation in high-risk multilateral military operations.
• Progress in civil-military relations in Greece will be noted, particularly in the post-fiscal-crisis period, in terms of civil society engagement with the issue of Armed Forces reform, the civilianisation of defence-related innovation, and the participation of the Greek Armed Forces in high-risk, high-return multilateral military operations.
• Policy recommendations will address those domains in civil-military relations where, as in other comparative country case studies, there has been no appreciable improvement.
• These domains are the quality of parliamentary oversight of national defence policy, the lack of a sophisticated civilian technocracy within the Greek Ministry of National Defence, and the absence of defence studies in Greece’s leading state universities.

Read here in pdf the Policy Paper by Antonis Kamaras, ELIAMEP Research Associate.

Introduction

This year, Greece celebrated the 50th anniversary of the collapse of the military junta and the restoration of democracy. Yet the voluminous reflections and analyses generated by the anniversary have paid scant attention to the junta’s failure in the one domain in which the military was supposedly superior to civilian leadership: the efficiency of the Greek Armed Forces. Significantly, this is also the domain that catalysed the junta’s fall via the military defeat inflicted on it in Cyprus by the invading Turkish Armed Forces[1]. In addition, no commentary has been offered on the state of civil-military relations over the following fifty years from the point of view of creating and sustaining effective Armed Forces.

Whether Greece’s fifty-year post-junta democratic regime has actually done a better job at preparing and evolving the nation’s Armed Forces for defending the country’s territorial integrity and sovereign rights is not a question that has been asked or answered by Greece’s academic community. Press reports on the 50th anniversary of the restoration of democratic rule have instead limited themselves by and large to the first months of democratic transition, and in particular to the deft way in which the first post-junta Prime Minister, Konstantinos Karamanlis, defanged the military so it would not threaten Greek democracy again. This lack of curiosity is even more remarkable considering that, over the last four years, Greece has been confronted by an increasingly assertive Turkey, which most knowledgeable international observers consider a card-carrying member of the aggressively revisionist powers seeking to overturn the western law-based international order. Likewise, past crises that have brought Greece to the brink of war with Turkey, revealing serious deficiencies in the preparation of the Greek Armed Forces, and most prominently the Imia islets crisis of 1996, have failed to elicit sustained scholarly scrutiny or to lead to a fundamental reordering of civil-military relations based on sound and sophisticated policy analysis.

This scholarly failure to examine Greece’s civil-military relations, and the outcomes it produces in terms of the common good of national defence, should be contextualised with reference both to theconditions preceding the Greek fiscal crisis and the post-crisis economic policy regime. Why Greece has topped the table within NATO and the EU in defence spending relative to its GDP, but failed to use that spending to catalyse a robust defence technological industrial base (DTIB), should have generated an informed public and policy discourse. This is so for two critically important reasons: first, a weak DTIB has undermined the efficiency of the Greek Armed Forces in terms of the cost-efficient maintenance of its weapon systems; and second, a weak DTIB has contributed to the Greek economy’s lack of international competitiveness, as it has neither created positive spillovers into the civilian economy or generated a noteworthy export performance.

Instead, the only subject that has been systematically written about and reflected on within Greece’s policy and intellectual elites is the now historical post-1974 consolidation of civilian supremacy over the country’s Armed Forces[2]. While this was clearly a momentous event, the literature on civil-military relations has long since established that while it is a necessary condition of healthy civil-military relations, the sufficient condition are those second-generation reforms that can best ensure that a democratic polity’s Armed Forces can execute their mission, as this is defined by its civilian masters, given the inevitable resource constraints. It is even more illuminating of this state of affairs that the only significant exception to this rule, the magisterial treatment of civil-military relations from the perspective of the Greek constitution by Greece’s leading constitutional scholar, Nikos Alivizatos, has been all but ignored by Greece’s civilian expert community on defence, such as it is[3]. And this, despite the analysis in this publication remaining highly relevant to many issues that are vital to the efficacy of the Greek Armed Forces, as we will note below.

Considering the above, this policy paper will seek to answer, albeit in a preliminary fashion, the question of what kind of civil-military relations Greece needs to enable its Armed Forces to fulfil their mission in the foreseeable future, in a new century that has already witnessed the return of a major interstate war of territorial conquest on the European continent, as well as the emergence of the European Union as a collective security provider.

In order to achieve this aim, the policy paper will proceed as follows:

The first section will provide a discussion, in summary form, of the international literature on second-generation reforms in civil-military relations—that is, reforms that seek to improve the effectiveness of the Armed Forces.

The second section will highlight constraints that have been identified in the implementation of second-generation reforms, as well as such other obstacles to effective civil-military relations as are pertinent to our investigation.

The third section will explore the junta’s legacy in post-junta democratic civil-military relations in Greece. It will do so by examining certain features of civil-military relations in the post-junta period and putting these features into a comparative context. As such, it will look at how civil-military relations in Greece have circumscribed jointness in the Greek Armed Forces, inhibited participation in the high-risk component of peacekeeping or stabilisation operations, and failed to render conscription effective.

The fourth section will utilise comparative lenses to illuminate the defining characteristics of civil-military relations that make the Greek case similar to, or distinct from, other comparator cases.

The fifth section will assess the ways in which Greece’s fiscal crisis catalysed certain changes in civil-military relations, inter alia invigorating civil society engagement in defence policy and increasing the need for technocratic management in all public policy domains including national defence.

The sixth section will examine the present government’s ‘Agenda 2030’ reforms and argue they represent a significant evolution in Greek civil-military relations, while also exploring how ‘Agenda 2030’’s declared objectives can be served by further progress in Greek civil-military relations.

The policy paper will conclude with three recommendations that emerge from the analysis.

Second-Generation Reforms: Ministries, Parliaments, Civil Societies

One pertinent strand in the literature on civil-military relations, for the Greek case, focuses on states that have transitioned from authoritarian rule, backed up or initiated by military force, to democratic rule[4]. This is so for two reasons. First, because a democratic transition entails a time lag between the need to impose civilian supremacy over the Armed Forces and the need to ensure that civil-military relations are such that they can produce effective Armed Forces capable of fulfilling their democratically determined mission, whatever this may be. Second, because there are features that characterise this transition from authoritarian to democratic rule that go on to shape and/or hinder the effort to configure civil-military relations optimally, given the resource constraints in place, to produce the Armed Forces the democratic polity determines that it needs. Arguing for the need for a more expansive treatment of civil-military relations as a means of evaluating the degree of democratic control over an Armed Forces, it has been noted that: “Most of the literature before the third wave of democratisation implicitly defined civilian control as the absence of military coups and military rule…Yet such a view is flawed as it reduces the complexity of civil-military relations to a single partial aspect, establishing the most extreme form of military intervention as a bench mark for whether civilian control exists or not”[5].

Taxonomically, the comparator peer group of Greek civil-military relations includes the democratising polities of Southern Europe in the 1970s (Portugal and Spain), Latin American states (such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile) in the 1980s and 1990s, East Asian states (such as Korea and Taiwan) in the 1990s and 2000s, and Central Eastern European states in the 1990s. Importantly, the South and Central Eastern European democratic transitions have democratic lock-in in common with Greece, due to their joint EU and NATO membership and receding fears that authoritarianism led or supported by military force may yet return. This lock-in warrants deeper reflection on why second-generation reforms in these countries has stalled decades after their democratic transition had been securely anchored.

Another discussion in the literature on civil-military relations which is relevant to Greece focuses on the growing involvement of parliaments in the articulation and execution of defence policy, primarily in Europe, due to the rise of expeditionary peacekeeping operations after the collapse of the Berlin Wall[6]. This development, enabled by US supremacy and US allies’ need to maintain a measure of influence with the sole remaining superpower, resulted in an expansion of the notion of defence and security beyond national territorial defence to engaging in casualty-inducing wars of choice, thus engendering the need for parliamentary debate and approval. While this discussion mostly involves the parliaments of countries which have been historically consolidated democracies since at least the end of World War II (e.g. Germany), and in many cases long before it (e.g. the UK), the analytical perspectives it has generated pose illuminating questions for the cohort of more recently democratised countries such as Greece.

As we seek to shift the debate from the supremacy of civilian rule over the Armed Forces of a democratic polity to whether such a polity can attain the Armed Forces it needs, our starting point is the assumption that defence is a public good for whose effectiveness the civilian leadership, and the democratic polity at large, is ultimately responsible. Given this assumption, there are three key interacting domains in which civil-military relations need to be regrounded if the democratic polity is to attain the Armed Forces it needs: Ministries of Defence, Parliaments, which we mentioned above, and civil societies.

Ministries of Defence are meant to institutionalise civilian leadership of the Armed Forces[7]. Specifically: “The Purpose of the defence ministry if to prepare the Armed Forces to serve the policy goals of government and act as a buffer zone between [the civilian executive] and the service branches. Should active or retired military officers occupy too many top positions within the defence sector, they may exhibit divided loyalties, exert undue influence, dominate defence and security policy-making, and crowd out alternative viewpoints”[8]. For a Ministry of Defence (MoD) to fulfil this role, it needs to secure a critical mass of civilian personnel with the requisite expertise, domain responsibility and authority. Only thus can the civilian leadership of a MoD meaningfully curtail if not totally eliminate the information asymmetry, which the leadership of the Armed Forces enjoys due to its military expertise, and thus make informed decisions with regard to the full range of MoD responsibilities, from weapons procurement to training and from operations to jointness and so forth.

As to why the civilian leadership of the MoD cannot simply rely on the advice of the military leadership it selects and supervises, there are a variety of critical reasons, including:

1. a) The Armed Forces themselves are not monolithic, with each of the main service branches (Army, Air Force, Navy) having its own strong views and preferences. Thus, a civilian leadership kept suitably informed by a civilian technocracy which is not vested in any one Service Branch is indispensable for adjudicating between contesting Service Branch priorities and representing the overarching interest in establishing effective joint operations that straddle all three branches. For adjudication of this sort is core to the mission of an adequately civilianised MoD[9]. Just to be clear, the literature on civilian technocracies’ role does not suggest that civilian technocrats will lay down the law to Armed Forces leaderships, but rather that they will confer on the future directions to be taken with an Armed Forces’ leadership, or even support the more reform-minded leaders of an officer corps when no consensus exists on the way forward within that corps.
2. b) The Armed Forces, representing as it does a sizeable chunk of the state’s payroll, is a powerful interest group[10]. Consequently, the civilian leadership of the MoD needs the technocratic support of civilian experts to take the decisions that serve the cause of creating effective Armed Forces, even if these decisions hurt the corporate interests of the Officer Corps.
3. c) Armed Forces operations are profoundly political, so the civilian leadership needs to rely on expert civilian advice and support to ensure that operations can serve the political ends they are meant to. This is not to say, however, that high-ranking officers should have no awareness of, or provide input to, the civilian leadership on the political implications of the military operations they are charged with designing and executing.

On the basis of this brief outline, MoDs which are effectively civilianised demonstrate certain features: First and foremost, civilian staff are not restricted to such supporting functions as legal affairs, financial management and personnel affairs. Rather they occupy leadership positions, backed up by formal authority, in such front-line domains as defence planning and defence strategy, officer education and weapons procurement. Civilian staff in civilianised MoDs possess expertise in defence matters, and even when they do not enjoy knowledge parity with the military officers they interact with, they are sufficiently knowledgeable to support the civilian leadership’s ability to set and implement defence policy[11]. Again, nobody suggests that a dysfunctional and ultimately unsustainable ‘us versus them’ relationship is being established. Rather, a diversity of perspectives is institutionalised through such civilian staff, in addition to which an MoD’s civilian leadership can access expertise that will allow them to agree or disagree with the military leadership with a good understanding of the available policy choices.

As with any other executive function, the quality of the parliamentary accountability to which an MoD is subject is an important issue[12]. First and foremost, parliaments can debate defence policy and Armed Forces operations[13]. Parliaments pass the budget that determines the resources allocated for a country’s Armed Forces. Specialised parliamentary committees (dealing with  defence matters and/or international affairs) can request additional information relating to national defence on the public’s behalf, they can conduct official inquiries into Armed Forces operations, inviting official testimony and the opinion of non-government experts.  Importantly, in the case of defence, parliamentary committees are uniquely placed to negotiate what belongs in the classified and non-classified domains, and under what conditions Parliament can access the latter category. Deliberations of this sort create the evidence base on the basis of which democratic scrutiny and deliberation can take place.

The three key components that are required for a parliament to exercise meaningful oversight are “the ability to oversee, the willingness to exercise those abilities to actually gather the information in question, and the power to use that information in a way that impacts the military, the executive or both. Oversight over operations, procurement and personnel issues arguably are the most important issues to focus on because they represent the riskiest endeavours, the greatest expenses, and the values embodied by the military”[14].

The question of authorities and resources is critical to this parliamentary role[15]. Does a parliamentary Defence Committee have the power to call on uniformed and non-uniformed personnel to give testimony under oath? Can a Parliament request and receive information it deems necessary for its oversight role over the MoD or other ministries relevant to defence, such as the Ministry of Finance? Does Parliament enjoy the power to veto the authorisation of the nation’s Armed Forces to participate in military operations abroad? Is the MoD obliged to submit a National Defence Doctrine and Force Structure Plan to Parliament at regular—usually four-yearly—intervals? Is the parliamentary Committee on Defence supported by permanent staff who possess the expertise required for its oversight role?

The Parliament’s role in national defence is integral to the issue of military effectiveness. Parliamentary scrutiny can act as a deterrent to corruption in weapons procurement, which can result in the waste of scarce resources as well as suboptimal choices in military equipment[16]. Parliamentary debates and votes can confer legitimacy on changes in national defence policy, both at the elite and mass public levels, making such changes both politically feasible and long-lasting, to the benefit of national defence[17]. Informed deliberations on national defence with the participation of non-government experts can interrogate national defence doctrine and thinking, and thus help to expand and redefine the agenda for armed services reform. Critically, a Parliament that is informed about and able to act effectively on matters of national defence provides an alternative source of information and analysis on national defence. This makes  the media commensurably less dependent on the MoD, and thus freer to perform its own function of critically scrutinising national defence policy.

Both MoDs and parliaments exist in a wider societal context, which can contribute or not to successful civil-military relations. Does this societal context produce saliency or indifference with regard to defence policy? Is there a vibrant civil society, supported by a generally affluent populace, capable of supporting programmatic interest in defence policy through the funding of think tanks specialising in defence? Or does the dominance of patronage politics, in overall conditions of material deprivation, render defence policy of interest only to insiders with vested interests?

A vibrant civil society can have a symbiotic relationship with Parliament, political parties and/or the press[18]. Indicatively, it can advocate for improved conditions pertaining to the welfare of military personnel, from the quality of army barracks to the effectiveness of equipment necessary for survival on the battlefield; it can fight legal battles in pursuit of Armed Forces modernisation, as in the inclusion of women in an ever broader range of combat positions, or it can deter corruption in weapons procurement. Wider societal trends facilitative of civic engagement, such as the social media explosion, can enhance the critical scrutiny of national defence by accelerating information sharing on national defence and promoting interaction between the expert community and engaged members of the public[19].

Opportunities and Constraints pertinent to effective civil-military relations

Transitions to democratic rule often entail considerable political attention being paid to the challenge of establishing civilian supremacy and, relatedly, of eliminating a tradition of abusing military authority whose primary victims were conscripts : i.e. citizen-soldiers.

The former effort entails governments legitimated by the popular vote employing their mandate to dominate the military and keep it within the bounds of its professional tasks and constitutionally enshrined mission.

The latter effort may extend to non-governmental political mobilisation, civil society and the press combined questioning the military’s authority and competence to convert citizens into soldiers. In this case, due the political dynamics of the democratic transition, efforts to eliminate abusive behaviour may ultimately strip the Armed Forces of the professional authority needed to convert civilians into an effective conscript force.

What is often missing in such transitions is the development of civilian expertise in military affairs, most prominently in universities, so that the democratically elected executive can utilise this civilian expertise to close the information asymmetry gap with the officer corps and put itself in a position to develop and implement defence policy. Across a number of countries as far afield as Latin America, the European South and East Asia, past abuses of military-led authoritarianism contaminate the legitimacy of defence studies as an academic discipline after the democratic transition has taken place[20]. Consequently, defence and the Armed Forces tend to be the public policy domain that is least studied, with only a miniscule expert community vested in it. This is the case, regardless of the importance Armed Forces may still have in the democratisation period—either due to their role in internal security and civilian emergencies and/or due to their role in territorial defence and the defence of sovereign rights—and the substantial fiscal commitments such roles may engender.

Notwithstanding the transition to democratic rule, this absence of civilian expertise actually leads to excessive militarisation within a democratic polity. It results in civilians, up to and including democratically elected civilian leaderships, being perceived as incapable of exercising judgement on matters of Armed Forces organisation, major weapon procurement selection and so forth. This, coupled with shortcomings in the overall performance of democratic governance, sees Armed Forces claw back their prestige with the public, in the light of their hierarchical structure and discipline, and coming to enjoy a high degree of trust in opinion polls. This high level of trust can undermine the ability of their civilian masters to design and implement reforms that may still be necessary for the effectiveness and democratically-mandated mission requirements of the Armed Forces, but which harm parochial Armed Forces interests[21].

That being said, undue civilian deference to the Armed Forces has also been observed in consolidated democracies which employ an ample pool of highly expert civilian technocrats at their MoDs to support the supreme civilian leadership in a national security council staff capacity and in the legislature. The most prominent is the US[22]. There are a variety of reasons why this may be the case: Civilian leaders may want to ‘pass the buck’ to the Armed Forces in the case of military operations entailing casualties. They may also want to appropriate the superior status of the officer corps and credibility of the Armed Forces leadership for their own policy choices in national defence. Alternatively, they may want to avoid being on the losing side in a policy disagreement with an Armed Forces leadership which, through press leaks or in testimony to the legislature, may reveal policy preferences different from those of their civilian masters. Finally, civilian leaders may want to defer to their Armed Forces leadership in one policy domain of national defence in order to buy their acquiescence in another policy domain. The case of the US demonstrates, in a nutshell, that while the availability of civilian expertise may be a necessary condition for healthy civil-military relations, it is not a sufficient one.

As we move on to the issue of the parliamentary oversight of national defence, we note that debate on the roles of such oversight, but also the constraints upon it, has been generated primarily, albeit not exclusively, by case studies of mature and wealthy democracies demonstrating a high degree of civil liberties consolidation. As mentioned above, following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and a rise in their participation in expeditionary operations – essentially wars of choice entailing the prospect and actuality of casualties – such countries, primarily in Western Europe, have seen parliaments play a growing role debating and deciding on national defence under conditions of growing transparency[23]. Additionally, the expansion of the notion of security to involve terrorism and various civil emergencies ranging from natural disasters to pandemics, has further diluted the historically distinct area of national defence as a domain in which the executive enjoyed prerogatives of secrecy and discretion in decision-making[24].

The extent to which a parliament is willing to exercise control over the executive in the case of authorising military missions is multivariable, as is the willingness of executive civilian leaderships to impose their will on their Armed Forces’ leadership; it therefore does not hinge purely on whether a Parliament has the nominal authority to do so[25].

Executives, leaders of governments and/or their MoDs have asked Parliaments to authorise expeditionary operations, even when this was not required by law. They have done this so that responsibility will be shared with the Opposition, in the light either of lukewarm public support for a military expedition or the prospect of casualties[26]. Political pressures and imperatives can impair parliamentary scrutiny even under near ideal circumstances. A strong tradition of parliamentary scrutiny in Germany, which is the most prominent example for historical reasons, means that the German executive and German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, are habituated to formulating decisions in such a way that they can pass muster in the German Parliament. Nonetheless, tight parliamentary schedules coupled with partisan considerations may mean that wider considerations and critical non-government expertise in the operational area in which the Bundeswehr has been called upon to operate, are inadequately solicited. Instead, Parliament’s focus is restricted to the terms and conditions of the German participation, rather than on the wisdom and efficacy of the wider mission; this was the case of Mali[27]. On the other hand, even in countries with a robust post-WWII tradition of expeditionary warfare and no constitutional requirement to consult Parliament—the UK, for example—the seeking of parliamentary consent and its denial on occasions by Parliament, as in the case of intervention in Syria, has created a strong precedent for seeking parliamentary authorisation.

Parliaments have also been involved in debating national security strategy documents, or drafting them themselves, generally on a four-yearly basis in response to a need that arose out of the shift in national defence doctrines and practices. Such as shift may have entailed the professionalisation of Armed Forces via the abolition of conscription, their participation in missions other than territorial defence, and the assumption of alliance commitments. This latter shift has included, most prominently, the dilution of strong traditions of neutrality, as in the case of the Partnership for Peace connecting Sweden and Finland with NATO along with the Common Security and Defence Policy which connects these two countries to the EU’s collectively determined foreign policy and defence priorities[28]. In the case of multiparty coalition governments, such documents may receive only perfunctory scrutiny, as they are the outcome of coalition deliberations and Parliament is simply rubberstamping them. In other cases, they can generate robust parliamentary debate in which the Opposition invokes a long tradition of non-alignment to argue against this sort of formalised shift in national defence doctrine and the changes it entails for manpower systems and operations.

Parliaments have also scrutinised the procurement of major weapon systems. Here, unsurprisingly, the lack of expert staff support in their defence committees or supporting audit bodies, either within or outside Parliament, as in the case of national audit offices, has led to such scrutiny falling well short of requirements. This was the case with the Belgian government’s decision to acquire F35 fifth-generation aircraft, when the members of the relevant committees in Belgium’s Federal Parliament had to resort to seeking information from the media or a purported whistleblower report which subsequently proved to be fake[29].

Turning to civil society, we would argue that a combination of legitimacy and resources is a necessary condition for civil society actors to meaningfully contribute to healthy civil-military relations. Does the political culture allow for voices other than those of electorally legitimated partisanship in an issue as vital as national defence? Is a society affluent enough, the rule of law strong enough, the fiscal treatment of donations to non-profit organisations supportive enough for non-governmental, non-partisan initiatives which can exercise critical scrutiny on matters relating to national defence, and invest in expertise to do so, to be established and grow? And to do so without fear of attracting the ire of an arbitrary government, or punishment at the level of the individual or corporate donor entity, be it philanthropic or commercial?

At a more general level, the point has been made that the accountability structure is inevitably weak in democratic polities where patronage politics dominate, since public goods, and the programmatic commitments that shape their delivery, have less value to the electorate[30]. Citizens align themselves on the basis of the benefits to be derived according to their party affiliation, while their political representatives pursue strategies of polarisation and grandstanding which are designed to secure power and access to its spoils. Inevitably, an accountability structure of this sort restricts the interaction between civil society and parliamentary oversight. In effect, under such conditions, there is no politically meaningful constituency for objective expertise and the reforms that such expertise may recommend for the Armed Forces.

The Junta’s legacy for Greek civil-military relations

Both the defeat of Greek arms in Cyprus in 1974, resulting in a major loss of territory by the Republic of Cyprus to Turkey, and the shambolic mobilisation that followed discredited any demands the Armed Forces could make about running their own affairs free of civilian interference in the post-junta period. Nonetheless, the seven years of military dictatorship cast a long shadow, compromising the quest of civil-military relations that would enable Greece’s restored democratic rule to consistently produce the best Armed Forces its resource constraints could provide.

One of the main casualties of the junta’s legacy would be the establishment, in what would soon be a member country of the European Economic Community, of a depoliticised and meritocratically selected corps of state officials in the Armed Forces as much as elsewhere in the machinery of state. As the premier scholar of upper-level state functionaries, Dimitris Sotiropoulos has established, particularly following the coming to power of the leftist-populist PASOK party in 1983, the bureaucracy was considered a major obstacle to democratic emancipation due to its conflation with the post WW II authoritarian state, up to an including the junta’s seven-year suspension of democracy. As a result, upper-level state functionaries were replaced by political appointees and demands that competence be employed as a criterion for promotion were dismissed as elitist and anti-democratic[31]. In the Armed Forces, this translated into partisan affiliation being used as a criterion for promotion to the upper ranks, especially under PASOK, given its politicians’ suspicion that the officer corps would lean historically to the right.

We stress that this did not entail a process of the ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’ type, as the junta’s own failures illuminated its own form of patronage in officer selection, up to and including the selection of officers at ELDYK, the Greek military units stationed on Cyprus during the 1974 invasion[32]. Rather, in the name of the sovereignty of the democratic mandate, the restored democratic polity failed to take its cues from its Western European peers and modernise the state machinery on the dual basis of professional competence and non-partisanship and meritocratic selection. This failure, as Sotiropoulos notes, had the unintended consequence of undermining the legitimacy of democratic rule, given that a state machinery of this sort inevitably and recurrently fails to adequately serve the public good. While technocratic management has gradually been reinforced through the public sector as a whole in the decades that followed, it would seem the legacy of the absolute dominance over the selection of high-level state functionaries left behind by the democratic transition is still operative in the Armed Forces, giving political space to the civilian leadership to ride roughshod over the Armed Forces’ selection and promotion processes. This seems to have been especially true during the years of fiscal crisis, which witnessed high as much as arbitrary turnover in the upper levels of the country’s military leadership, at the behest of every government during that period[33].

Reinforcing this structural element of underperformance has been the lack of evidence-based policy and public scrutiny. The deeply entrenched perception in Greek Universities of the Armed Forces as illegitimate – the junta used enforced conscription as a tool to discipline university students rebelling against its rule, Military Police personnel actually tortured such students, and Greek armour units bloodily suppressed the 1973 rebellion at the Athens Polytechnic[34] – meant that defence studies have never established themselves as an academic discipline in Greek higher education. And this despite the fact that, over the entirety of what is now 50 years of democratic rule, the Greek-Turkish strategic rivalry has been considered a prime example of such rivalry in the international literature,[35] and Greece has consistently been a top spender on defence in relation to its GDP within NATO. Consequently, neither the media nor the Opposition—or, indeed, ruling party policy-makers—could rely on a steady stream of policy-relevant academic research to arrive at an informed judgement on the state of the Armed Forces. Arguably, with the exception of the last several years (more on which later), Greek media throughout this period was reduced to the ‘groundhog day’-like periodical reproduction of comparisons of the main weapon platforms (aircraft, main battle tanks, surface ships, submarines etc.) of the Greek and Turkish Armed Forces. As we will see immediately below, the only topic that attracted the interest of investigative journalism were the conditions pertaining to conscription service.

This lack of commitment on the part of the academic community also explains why there has been no take up of the need to redress the information asymmetry between the officer corps and the civilian leadership of the Greek Ministry of National Defence (MND). Nikos Alivizatos, in his analysis of this issue[36], points out that the Government Council of Foreign Affairs and Defence (Κυβερνητικό Συμβούλιο Εξωτερικών και Άμυνας – ΚΥΣΕΑ), the main interministerial body charged with managing defence issues on which the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff (HNDGS) also sat, could not mitigate this asymmetry, as the Minister of National Defence did not possess access to civilian expertise that would allow him to evaluate the advice of the military leadership.

Furthermore, he highlights that legislation on Armed Forces passed as early as 1977, three years after the collapse of the junta, recognised this need by enabling the Minister of National Defence to form expert committees on issues of defence policy with the participation of civilian experts. Parliamentarians from both the ruling party at the time, New Democracy (ND), and the Opposition, PASOK, also raised this issue, with an ND MP advocating the creation of a defence think tank that would institutionalise the generation of civilian expertise. Other MPs fell back on the idea that each Service Branch should have its own civilian Deputy Minister of National Defence – reviving the pre-WWII institutional arrangement of one Ministry for the Land Army and one for the Navy – in order to ensure informed civilian control. This was an understandable response, considering the underdeveloped awareness of the 1970s and the lack of clear templates internationally for employing civilian experts highly proficient in defence matters as permanent staff at a MoD.

Greek universities, by failing to establish defence studies departments or research institutes, have de facto refused to satisfy this need articulated by politicians nearly fifty years ago. This inaction on their part has also, we would argue, ensured there is no pressure within the system to seek out civilian expertise, or acceptance for such a policy, either through the convening of expert committees as provided for by the 1977 legislation or by staffing key MND divisions with both civilian and military experts, as is standard practice today in MoDs worldwide. It is no coincidence that this author has failed to identify an analysis produced by Greek defence experts on the information asymmetry obtaining between the civilian and military leadership that is anything like as lucid, comprehensive and penetrating as the treatment of the issue by Nikos Alivizatos—who is, we underline, a constitutional scholar and not a defence expert— in his seminal study from 1987, a work that is now 37 years old!

The junta’s legacy has also meant that Greece’s national defence has a tendency to become either overly civilianised or, ironically, excessively militarised, with both acting to the detriment of the Armed Forces’ ability to fulfil their mission of defending Greece’s territorial integrity and sovereign rights.

The prime example of excessive civilianisation is conscript service, a pillar of Greece’s defence doctrine, whose main mission is to defend the country’s territorial integrity. This is a labour-intensive mission for any Armed Forces, but still more so for Greece, given both its land border with its primary threat, Turkey, and the extensive Greek island complex adjacent to Turkey’s Aegean coastline. Essentially, due to the way the junta treated Greek youth both within and outside conscription service, the democratic transition period found the Armed Forces bereft of the trust it needed to convert civilian youth into effective conscript soldiers through rigorous training. The de facto arbiter of conscript training became extra-military, composed of the Opposition of the day and media keen to conflate rigorous training with a return ‘to the bad old days’[37]. A typical example of this state of affairs was the column in the now defunct leftist-populist Eleftherotypia newspaper entitled ‘Conscript, where are you heading?’ (‘Φαντάρε που πας’ in Greek), which relied on a steady stream of conscript allegations about conditions pertaining to their service in terms of living conditions, demands placed on them by training, and so on. It is illuminating of the tenor of the times that this newspaper never promoted an informed agenda in favour of the effectiveness of the Greek Armed Forces, despite the bellicose, even jingoistic, stance it took in its analysis of Greek-Turkish relations.

On the other hand, the MND has provided a prime example of excessive militarisation in Greece, with no high-level civilian staff employed there to deal with issues of defence policy, Armed Forces modernisation and weapons procurement policy, even though civilian representation of this sort is considered a best practice in democratic states with strong and effective militaries.

As we pointed out above, the Greek academic community’s lack of interest in defence studies[38] has resulted in a state of affairs in which the civilian leadership of the MND can neither draw high-level civilian functionaries from a deep pool of expertise inhering in the academic community or emanating from it, nor indeed justify such an infusion of civilian expertise, given the impression this excessive militarisation has formed with both the public and elites that only uniformed personnel are fit to formulate and execute policy relating to the country’s Armed Forces[39]. A specific domain in which this excessive militarisation is felt most keenly is in the lack of development of joint operations in the Greek Armed Forces, where there is no separation between the HNDGS and the theatre command in the eastern part of the country. Thus, in essence, a nominally all-powerful HNDGS Chief is supposed both to oversee the totality of the Armed Forces and to execute jointness in the event of a military conflict with Turkey. The Minister of National Defence cannot rely on a sophisticated civilian staff working in alignment with reform-minded officers to drive and implement, through operational arrangements and procurement choices, a jointness agenda that is bound to be resisted by parochial interests, or at any rate interests unique to each Branch of the Armed Forces[40]. This centralisation and personalisation of authority has been criticised by retired high-ranking officers for failing to integrate the point of views of the individual service branches, never mind for its inability to institutionalise sophisticated joint operations[41].

An event which crystallised some of the main shortcomings identified here was the 1996 Imia islet crisis, which demonstrated variable officer quality as well as poor inter-Branch coordination. The crisis eventually led the Greek government, which was, of course, ultimately responsible for this state of affairs, to request US adjudication, so Turkish troops would leave the Imia islet they had landed on and a broader crisis could be averted. Such adjudication, being imposed by a third party, emboldened Turkish challenges of Greek sovereignty over the Imia islets and other islets like it. We would argue that Imia provided a real-life example of the process  Sotiropoulos has previously identified: namely, that of a democratic mandate—translated into an absence of meritocracy as much as a lack of systemic state reform—ultimately delegitimising democratic rule. It is no coincidence that this style of post-junta democratic rule bequeathed an Armed Forces that necessitated US intervention. In effect, the very event which PASOK defined itself against was engendered by PASOK’s management of the country’s Armed Forces. Which is to say that the dynamics of the civil-military relations identified above rendered any resolution of the crisis—or its deterrence—through the judicious use of a well-run Armed Forces by the sovereign democratic polity (which is surely the supreme manifestation of national will), impossible. We must stress that, as we see it, the Imia incident does not call into question the professionalism, competence and valour of individual members of the Armed Forces who participated in it, from the Chief of the HNDGS down to the lowest-ranking sailor; rather, it reveals the impossibility of such individual professionalism, competence and valour making up for the systemic failings produced by a decisively subpar civil-military relationship, which by 1996 had already been two decades in the making.

We must add here that the Imia crisis did not lead to an ambitious reform effort on the part of the Armed Forces[42]. Specifically, other than the strengthening of Special Forces units in training and equipment, so they could intervene more effectively in another Imia-like situation, and the drafting of rules of engagement for the Armed Forces in various conflict scenarios, no steps were taken to advance joint operations, which was surely one of the major lessons learned from Imia and highly applicable to a future crisis of a different nature or larger scale than Imia. Parliament did not conduct an official inquiry on Imia, though this would have been customary in many democratic polities so that lessons would be learned, codified and serve as the basis for wide-ranging Armed Forces reform. The government of the day did, in the light of Imia, allocate significant resources to upgrading key weapon systems in all branches, with the procurement choices made by and large involving reliable, highly advanced weapon systems manufactured by Greece’s key allies: the US, France and Germany. However, the reformist PM, Costas Simitis, did not engage directly or indirectly with Armed Forces reform, not least due to an ideological alienation originating in the post WW II authoritarianism that culminated in the junta regime[43], with Simitis himself being active in opposition to the junta. Instead, Simitis gave the MND portfolio to his key antagonist, Akis Tsohatzopoulos, the leader of PASOK’s traditionalist faction and a typical patronage politician who was subsequently indicted and jailed on the basis of corruption charges involving the post-Imia weapons procurement programme.

An international perspective on Greek civil-military relations

When we compare the state of Greek civil-military relations in the post-junta period with those of other democratic polities, we cannot but highlight some very strong similarities.

Democratic polities, whether due to features of the transition process from authoritarian to democratic rule or to other factors, often neglect to develop expertise and/or utilise civilian expertise in defence. In Brazil, authoritarian rule led to national security becoming a dirty word expunged from official documents. Despite the military subsequently being invited by the country’s civilian rulers to participate in issues of domestic security, in particular, the MoD has remained militarised and efforts to develop jointness have failed, with each Branch retaining its fiefdom and determining its own procurement priorities[44]. The growing maturity of defence studies scholarship has been encouraging but has yet to translate into an impact on Armed Forces policy-making in Brazil. EU democracies with an authoritarian past, which include states as wide-ranging as Poland and Spain, also demonstrate minimal civilian participation in defence policy-making and thus a correspondingly circumscribed ability on the part of the civilian Ministers of Defence to define and execute defence policy[45]. In the Ministry of Defence of India, civilian staff seconded from other ministries focus on managing the finances of the Ministry, without however being experts in defence. Shortcomings revealed, as in the case of Greece, in several conflict instances, most prominently during operations against Pakistan at Kargill and the peacekeeping operation in Sri Lanka, exposed the limitations of the Indian Armed Forces when, in the absence of a robust jointness framework, the service branches operate on an ad hoc coordination model in a conflict situation[46]. It seems that India’s civilian masters have abrogated responsibility, at least in part, to the Armed Forces and the constituent service branches in how to run their affairs—not least so that, if things go awry, they can shift the blame onto the military side.

Greece exhibits some similarities with the Indian case in this respect, in that a persisting information asymmetry between civilian masters and military officers, shortcomings in the efficiency of the Armed Forces, and the inherent high-risk nature of any conflict situation have resulted in the Chief of the HNDGS emerging as an all-powerful micromanager of the Armed Forces[47]. We would describe this state of affairs as ‘deferment to the military because of civilian incompetence’, in contrast with the US situation of ‘deferment to the military despite civilian competence’. In such cases, aware that their own accumulated reform shortcomings mean they do not have the Armed Forces at their disposal that they and the country need, the country’s civilian rulers confer excessive authority and status on the Chief of the HNDGS, who can therefore be used as a scapegoat if and when these shortcomings come to light. The all-encompassing authority of the Chief of the HNDGS, particularly in wartime, originates in Greece’s authoritarian past, in the 1940s and even earlier when the King assumed command of the nation’s Armed Forces in the first quarter of the 20th century. In addition, as has rightly been pointed out, it reflects the insecurities of Greece’s civilian leadership with regard to their ability to bear the ultimate responsibility for wartime leadership[48]. As we have argued, this insecurity stems at least in part from the lack of civilian expert advice on national defence. It is worth noting in this regard that contemporary scholarship has challenged the premise that war is best prosecuted by the military high command alone, with no decisive input from the civilian leadership, on the basis of the historical evidence[49].

Excessive civilianisation, as in the case of conscription, is prominent during democratic transitions in several countries. Nothing analogous has been noted in post-WWII democratic polities which have not experienced authoritarian rule and which have utilised conscription as a pillar of their territorial defence. Examples of the latter range from Finland, which has not engaged in military conflict during this period, to Israel, whose mixed Armed Forces of professionals, conscripts and reserves have been recurrently engaged in multiple conflicts.

In Taiwan, conscription was also instrumentalised by the country’s authoritarian regime for domestic purposes, as a result of which the military lost the benefit of the doubt, as it did in Greece, in terms of its ability to convert citizens into soldiers[50]. The death of a conscript following the democratic transition led to the wholesale transfer of the military justice system to civilian courts. Conscription service was progressively cut to 4 months, with training becoming perfunctory despite the country facing an existential challenge in the form of the determination of the People’s Republic of China to achieve unification by hook or by crook (conscription service has now been restored to 12 months, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which validated the case for conscription as core to territorial defence while highlighting the real risks Taiwan faces in terms of maintaining its independence).

Argentina also mirrors Greece in this respect: as the country shifted to democratic rule, an apparatus of antimilitarism involving civil society organisations, political parties and the media shaped the ‘political weather’ regarding perceptions of maltreatment by the Armed Forces of conscripted soldiers[51]. As in Taiwan, the death of a conscript as a result of mistreatment was enough to catalyse radical change, which in this case led to the abolition of conscription service altogether, with no informed policy debate whatsoever on whether conscription served the country’s national security needs or not.

In sum, the common civil society thread running through these three cases of countries transitioning to democracy is setting the conditions of conscript service over the professional judgement of the Armed Forces[52]. It is structurally incurious about, or even hostile to, issues relating to the effectiveness of the Armed Forces, not least because such an interest is at conflict with efforts to civilianise the experience of conscription.

Where Greece represents a distinct case within its NATO and more largely European peer cohort, is that it has operated under the strictest of caveats, to avoid suffering any casualties at all in post-Cold War out-of-area missions. Not only did Greece not send troops during the occupation phase in Iraq, it also suffered no casualties – unlike any only NATO member country with substantial Armed Forces – during its participation in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, due to its Kabul-only caveat. Although there has been no systematic study of this feature of Greek defence policy, we speculate that it is integrally connected to the fact that Greece is the only NATO member country not covered by Article 5, due to Turkey’s NATO membership; of course, this factor was starkly illuminated in 1974, during the invasion of Cyprus, where Greek units actually engaged Turkish invading forces, and in subsequent Greece-Turkey crises in which NATO adopted a neutral stance with the US playing the role of umpire.

This limited (albeit not insignificant) role played by NATO and the US, coupled with the nearly catastrophic lack of legitimacy engendered by the invasion of Cyprus (which led to Greece exiting the military wing of NATO only to renter it a few years later), has meant that Greek civilian leaders would pay  a formidable political cost in the event of Greek units suffering casualties during their participation in a US- or NATO-led mission. By contrast, in other peer countries, governments have invoked allied commitments to politically enable decisions to put troops in harm’s way[53]. The corollary of such risk avoidance is that defence policy in Greece, unlike in many other European NATO or EU member countries, was not parliamentarised in the post-Cold War period. In such countries, participating in wars of choice in far-off lands, as opposed to wars of national defence, resulted in extensive parliamentary debates, multiple parliamentary votes, and parliamentary inquiries conducted by the relevant parliamentary committees, making parliaments a factor in civil-military relations. This has most definitely not been the case in Greece[54].

Importantly, the Greek Parliament has exercised limited or no oversight of either defence spending or defence procurement through the Permanent Committee on National Defence and External Affairs—a state of affairs that persists to this day[55]. Parliamentary Committees have generally toed the party line, either faithfully supporting government policy , warts and all, or indiscriminately opposing it, depending on the party affiliation of their members. Committees lack expert staff to support the deliberations of the participating MPs, with MPs being supported, if at all, by their own personal staff, who are not defence experts. The  Permanent Committee on National Defence and External Affairs has not launched a single inquiry or issued a single report relating to defence policy or serious operational mishaps, nor has it demanded that the government do so[56]. Major weapon systems acquisitions are either supported by the Opposition parties, lest they be accused of not wanting to support national defence, or opposed as extravagantly costly, with hints that they may involve corruption on the part of government officials. However, no informed debate takes place on the pluses and minuses of these major acquisitions costing billions of euros, or on the pros and cons of possible alternatives.

This stagnation is widely perceived as being characteristic of Parliament as a whole, with commissions of inquiry coming in for the most severe criticism over time due to, on the one hand, the government’s use of its majority to paper over policy failure and, on the other hand, the Opposition minority exploiting such commissions to grandstand and score points against the government, negating any policy significance they may have[57].

That being said, as Nikos Alivizatos has pointed out, post-junta democratic governments of both the Right and Left have essentially left unchallenged the junta’s own norm, enshrined in legislation passed in 1973, of shielding defence from normal scrutiny, the premise being that it should be protected from the rough and tumble of competitive politics[58]. This junta-era legislation has its own antecedents in the pre-WWII Metaxas dictatorship (1936-1940), which reversed the robust, decades-long tradition of parliamentary control of defence matters that preceded it, as well as in the post-WWII period, when the goal was to shield from public scrutiny the deep involvement of the US in Greece’s running of its national security apparatus, including its Armed Forces.

Considering that legacy, it is no coincidence that leftist PASOK and its leader Andreas Papandreou argued, in Opposition, in favour of Parliamentary Committees of Defence and Foreign Affairs being able to conduct robust investigations of aspects of defence policy, with the appropriate classified safeguards in place, not least due to past abuses of secrecy by an all-powerful military. The template proposed was that of the Bundestag, reflecting the historically informed unwillingness to ever again leave a powerful military unaccountable. Illuminatingly, once in power, one of PASOK’s main enforcers, Menios Koutsogiorgas, who was Minister of the Interior at the time, argued that if Parliamentary Committees of Inquiry could be set up with the consent of only two fifths of Parliament, which is to say without the consent of the ruling party, that would be tantamount to the suspension of democratic government[59]. It is both fascinating and promising that in recent years increasingly reform-minded, albeit retired, high-ranking officers, frustrated by the unwillingness or inability of the country’s executive leadership to upgrade the fighting efficiency of the nation’s Armed Forces, have supported greater scrutiny of national defence by the Greek Parliament and the Permanent Committee on National Defence and External Affairs in particular – the assumption being that such scrutiny will advance and not retard the cause of Armed Forces reform[60].

The Greek Parliament (if not Greek civil society, as we will note below) seems to have mirrored India in recent years in presenting a case of a low accountability structure[61]; as an issue, this is not limited to defence and the Armed Forces. Since neither individual MPs nor the ruling and Opposition parties represented in Parliament are incentivised to gain influence and power through policy scrutiny and debate, they do not seek the resources and authority necessary to do so. Rather, the dominant incentive  is to protect or contest power via policy-free, as opposed to policy-informed, personal advancement and partisanship. Expertise and the authority to use it would hinder, not facilitate, the utilisation of this dominant incentive. It is indicative of this state of affairs that when the civilian leadership of Greece’s MND decided on two occasions to publish a White Book on Greece’s defence policy, Parliament failed to ensure that this becomes a standard practice, with future White Books on defence published at regular intervals and discussed at both the Committee and plenary levels.

Evolving Civil-Military Relations during the fiscal crisis and after it

The country’s fiscal crisis, we will argue, boosted critical elements of Greece’s civil-military relations, while also accelerating pertinent trends already present in Greece.

First, by humbling the Greek state and the majoritarian parties that mediated between the state machinery and popular will, the fiscal crisis boosted pluralism and civil society in Greece[62], opening up space for a variety of critical discourses, including frank discussion on the effectiveness of the Armed Forces.

The fiscal cutbacks arguably brought the Armed Forces very close to, or even past, the point at which they could no longer perform their essential mission of safeguarding the country’s territorial integrity in case of war with Turkey. Upgrades of key platforms were cancelled, accelerating the de facto obsolescence of key weapon systems in all three service branches. A lack of component parts compelled cannibalisation, limiting the availability of fighter aircraft and warships. Acquisitions of new weapon systems became an impossibility, confronting Greece with the reality of its being, militarily, at both a quantitative and qualitative disadvantage vis a vis Turkey. Even such staples as fuel for the Hellenic Navy (HN) Fleet could no longer be taken for granted, rendering operations close to unfeasible. As the country regressed to a 19th-to-early-20th-century model of private munificence becoming necessary for elementary state provisions, philanthropy originating from the shipping community in particular became a critical element, most prominently in the case of the HN, which maintains close links with the country’s shipowners. One of the most prominent of these philanthropists offered an unprecedently blunt as well as detailed critique of the HN’s state of preparedness in a series of remarkably frank articles in Greece’s quality press[63]. Along the same lines, recently retired high-ranking HN officers also shared their alarm with the public in an investigative piece on Greek TV[64]. The then Director of ELIAMEP, which is funded by Greek philanthropy and CSR and EU sources, also co-authored an analysis which pointed out that the still high ratio of defence expenditure to GDP meant little, considering the close to 30 % fall in the output of the Greek economy[65].

In tandem, amidst this fiscal-crisis-induced permissive environment for public discourse on defence, we witness the rise of a virtual community of specialist defence correspondents and scholarly retired officers who provide a steady stream of open access reports, analysis, and even peer-reviewed standard articles on the Greek Armed Forces and national defence in general. The audience for these defence specialists, who also provide feedback loops mainly on Facebook and LinkedIn, and can in individual cases partner with the providers of this output through such social media network activation, is comprised of active and retired members of the Armed Forces as well as members of the Armed Forces reserves who have served as conscripts[66].

We stress that, with driving forces such as these, informed and open debate on the state of the Armed Forces became the rule and not the exception during the fiscal crisis, with critical voices emerging in all public policy domains. This change was engendered by major, policy-informed philanthropic giving, as in the case of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which funded social welfare provision and youth employability schemes, or the funding of the dissemination of policy-relevant academic research by diaNEOsis, an organisation established by the Greek business magnate, Dimitris Daskalopoulos[67]. This crisis-generated precedent outlived the crisis as, after all, it had done nothing more that align Greece with the norms in its affluent, democratic peer states worldwide: namely, informed debate on national defence involving both retired officers and defence experts, either under the aegis of privately funded think tanks or solely on the basis of their prestige with no institutional affiliation attached[68]. Nor should we be surprised by the alacrity with which quality print and TV media responded and enhanced this trend, considering the organic links such media have with their international peers. Illuminatingly, Greece’s two major quality media groups (Kathimerini and Ta Nea – To Vima) publish investigative pieces by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal , including articles on defence-related themes, in either the original English or in translation.

Second, the fiscal crisis diffused technocracy throughout every aspect of public policy in Greece, and ultimately strengthened the technocratic element in the centre right party, ND, which also enjoys organic links with the Armed Forces due to its greater ideological affinity. With Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a very policy-oriented and technocratic Prime Minister at the helm, the ND government of 2019 was ready to apply its reform-mindedness to the domain of national defence[69]. This synthesis was not as pronounced during the first term of the Mitsotakis government, when major weapons procurements from abroad were privileged, being led by the PM himself and his Office, and when the MND was led by an ND politician with no prior background in foreign and defence policy. By the time the present incumbent, Nikos Dendias, a leading ND politician and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, took office, it became fully articulated under the ‘Agenda 2030’ Armed Forces reform programme.

Civil-Military relations and the implementation of the ‘Agenda 2030’

The ‘Agenda 2030’[70] aligns itself with the ND government’s overall reform orientation as much as with the predominant Armed Forces reform features worldwide. As such, it matches politics with policies to the extent that the MND has been transformed from a politically prestigious cul de sac for its Minister, and a risk not a benefit to the government of the day, to a stepping stone for its occupant and a feather in the hat of the government. A brief overview of the main elements of the ‘Agenda 2030’ – which includes the creation of a robust defence technological industrial base (DTIB), the selective adoption of the lessons learned from modern conflicts, most prominently from the war in Ukraine, the upgrading of conscription and the reform of professional military education – will make that clear.

The creation of a robust DTIB involves both the restructuring of ailing state-owned defence firms and the forging of a partnership between the Armed Forces and Greece’s growing start-up scene. It thus makes the MND and its Minister a catalyst for Greece’s manufacturing innovation and a participant to the wider efforts to make the Greek economy internationally competitive. It is also a highly resonant public policy effort to emulate rivals and friends alike. Namely, Turkey’s strong DTIB is recognised as a pillar of the threat that country poses to Greece’s territorial integrity and sovereign rights, while Israel provides the template for a country which has, through its defence-related innovation, both managed to build Armed Forces that are superior to all its rivals and a highly competitive economy. By contrast, Greece’s past record of acquiring imported weapon systems with zero impact on its innovation capacity, while mismanaging its state-owned defence firms at a substantial cost both to the military effectiveness of its Armed Forces and to its public finances, is seen as a contributor to the Greek fiscal crisis[71].

This policy orientation is also an important first step in the civilianisation of the MND, as for the first time ever an outfit jointly led and staffed by civilian and military personnel, the Hellenic Centre for Defence Innovation (HCDI), will be primarily responsible for procuring innovative products and services on behalf of Greece’s Armed Forces. The HCDI’s civilian element here is particularly pronounced: in addition to its President, who is the ex-Chief of the Fleet of the HN, its first managing director is a doyen of innovation who has sprung from Greece’s research community (an ex-professor, former leader of a public research organisation, and founder of one of Greece’s first and most successful tech start-ups[72]), while the HCDI’s modus operandi is compatible with the way start-ups are funded internationally, be they civilian or defence-oriented. The creation of a robust DTBI is also additionally strengthened, as established private-sector defence firms can and do communicate their criticisms to the media regarding the perceived shortfalls of this policy. The highly prestigious start-up community is also keen to highlight in public what it will take for its members to engage with the MND, while both the business press and the academic community are well able to pass informed judgement on the successes and failures of the policy[73].

The other key priority—adapting to lessons learned—is also an articulation of best-practice, evidence-based technocracy, which is how the government presents itself to the Greek electorate. In particular, the war in Ukraine has transformed key aspects of warfare and established clear benchmarks, in terms of the adoption of key technologies and emerging operational practices, which are relevant to Armed Forces worldwide. Importantly, the ‘lessons learned’ enterprise has a symbiotic, albeit non-exclusive, relationship with the cause of creating a robust DTIB, as Greek defence firms would in due course be called upon to create and manufacture a meaningful proportion of the technologies which feature prominently in these lessons learned.

Importantly, there has also been a break with the past in the domain of multinational military operations, whereby Greece has taken an active role in the creation and execution of the EU’s EUNAVFOR ASPIDES mission, involving the protection of merchant shipping from Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. This mission has involved the HN engaging in military operations, shooting and bringing down Houthi drones with its guns and electronic warfare (EW) instruments, and thus placed its crews and ships in harm’s way for the first time since WW II. The ASPIDES mission has been defended on collective defence grounds: thus, due to its  support of the Ukrainian war effort, the EU has become an increasingly credible collective security provider—unlike NATO, which has Turkey as a fellow member country. This development demonstrates that, once the policy conditions are in place, Greece’s civilian leadership follows the rule in terms of the decision to engage the country’s Armed Forces in multinational military operations. HN’s use of ‘Centaur’, an EW device developed and manufactured by EAV, the Greek aerospace firm, as well as the fact that Houthi attacks have also been launched against Greek merchant marine vessels and negatively impacted the role of Piraeus as a major transshipment port, have further enhanced Greek ‘ownership’ of the ASPIDES mission, as per the public advocacy of the current Minister of National Defence.

That being said, we must also point to the absence of creating a civilian component in the MND’s defence planning function. Essentially, the Minister’s measure of influence on the selection and adaptation of the lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, and other wars,   will be limited to the selection of those officers entrusted with that particular mission.  The Minister of the MND will not be supported, in his final determination of which lessons from the war in Ukraine are most relevant to the Greek Armed Forces, by a group of permanent, civilian experts detached from single-Branch interests and perspectives[74]. By contrast, the government has often opted, vis-à-vis other policy challenges it has faced, to commission independent experts, often diaspora technocrats or scholars who are leaders in their field, to deliver policy recommendations in publicly available reports which generate additional debate and analysis by experts unattached to a particular agency of the government or bureaucratic group[75].

How does the academic and more general expert community connect with this executive intent, articulated in ‘Agenda 2030’, and the dynamics that drive it? There is a critical divide that mirrors the progress or lack thereof of the MND’s civilianisation efforts. University departments and schools focused on areas that do not fall within the humanities and social sciences have for years now been accessing European Research Council funds with dual use applications, civil and military, in such domains as IT and, increasingly, Artificial Intelligence, engineering and aerospace. As both EU and NATO funding in core defence have increased by leaps and bounds, these university departments and schools have built on their track record in dual use applications  and many of them are aggressively pursuing opportunities in defence R&D. Nor have they shied away from signing MoUs with one of the main Greek defence firms’ associations, SEKPY – albeit, according to information relayed to the author, with the significant exception of the Athens Polytechnic, Greece’s most prestigious engineering school and the site of the junta’s bloody suppression of the students’ revolt in 1973. Most recently, the discipline of finance has joined the fray[76]. Political Science, on the other hand, remains absent both in terms of wide-ranging scholarly output and policy-relevant research. There is still no department of defence studies in any Greek state universities, and core defence courses are not taught in their international affairs departments.

This absence of quality defence studies literature, and of a high-profile internationally prestigious national defence scholarship cohort resident in Greece, represents a twin as much as mutually reinforcing obstacle to the efforts of any Minister of National Defence, the current incumbent included, to civilianise the MND. First, the absence of a deep pool of resident civilian defence technocrats, as most of the Greek technocrats, men and women, have not only studied defence abroad, they have also been employed abroad, either by government or in research institutes, universities or the private sector. Second, the impression entrenched in both the civilian world and within the Greek officer corps, that only the officer corps can have the necessary expertise on matters of national defence, and that such expertise neither could nor should be synthesised, let alone challenged, by civilian experts.

The institution of an effective conscription system, replacing what the Minister himself has described on several occasions as the completely ineffective present conscription system[77] for both the Armed Forces themselves and the conscript, is an issue at the very core of civil-military relations, as it entails converting citizens into soldiers. Here, we will be dealing with a declining but still strong civilianisation tradition that we analysed above, which originated in the early democratisation period which will be contested by the segment of civil society that will want to judge conscription from the point of its military efficacy.

To the older civilianisation tradition, implementing a modern conscription system with both the physical rigour and calculated physical risk attendant on the upgrading of conscript training  will be tantamount to an attempt to revive historical authoritarianism and the manhandling of conscripts by the officer corps. By contrast, the civil society segment in favour of strengthening the effectiveness of the Armed Forces, which we also analysed, and which emerged during the fiscal crisis, will be  providing political support to the MND’s efforts to upgrade conscription.  At the same time,  these civil society advocates of an effective Armed Forces,  will also  be ready to highlight any regression to standard patronage practices that would bring disrepute to the reform of conscription as much as rendering it ineffective, such as widespread conscript unit selection, usually far away from the Greek-Turkish border, on the basis of patronage relations.

An important factor in how this reform of conscription unfolds is the international dimension as it is shaped by the Russo-Ukrainian war. The war has singlehandedly reaffirmed the indispensability of effective conscript armies for territorial defence; it has turned Finland and Israel into global paragons, due to their tradition of creating effective conscript systems under diverging national security environments; it has led to the revival of conscription in nearly all European countries adjacent to the Russian Federation; it has compelled Taiwan to revive its own moribund conscription system; last but not least, it has even raised questions in the US as to whether, in the era of Sino-US competition and the return of Big War, the All-Volunteer Force model adopted after the end of the Vietnam War is still fit for purpose. Implementing an effective conscription system is, of all the policy elements in the ‘Agenda 2030’, the most visible to the country’s civilian population; consequently, the fact that this policy has achieved global norm status is of vital significance to its effective public advocacy and, by extension, to its political viability.

Finally, one domain in which civil-military relations have demonstrated stagnancy in this otherwise dynamic phase in Greek civil-military relations is undoubtedly that of parliamentary oversight and debate. Indicatively, there has been no comprehensive debate on the rationale of the Greek Armed Forces participating in risky multinational military operations, at  the plenary level; this constitutes a missed opportunity to establish a new consensus on the participation of the Greek Armed Forces in multilateral military operations so that, in the event of future personnel fatalities and injuries, the country does not revert to the ‘free ridership’ which is so damaging to the national interest.

Concluding Thoughts and Recommendations

Both the way in which the post-authoritarian democratic transition has shaped civil-military relations in Greece, and the impact such civil-military relations have had on the country’s ability to produce effective Armed Forces, closely match the experience of other countries which experienced a similar historical trajectory.

A disinterested academic community which, bar individual exceptions, has not recognised  national defence as a legitimate and significant field of inquiry as a public policy domain; weak or no parliamentary oversight of national defence; and an excessively militarised MND are not exceptional in a country, like Greece, which has experienced a transition to democracy after the collapse of a military junta. Nor are the policy consequences of this state of affairs unique to Greece: namely, corruption in military procurement and organisational reform efforts which remain timid even after significant operational failures negatively impacting vital national interests.

Yet, as we have noted and argued, Greece is not exceptional, either, in the significant progress it has made to escape the long shadow cast by its authoritarian past and to meaningfully upgrade its civil-military relations and thus the effectiveness of its Armed Forces. The return of ‘Big War’ to Europe as part of the same trend that has fuelled Turkish revisionism vis a vis Greece, together with the need to make defence at least partly ‘pay its way’ through an innovation-inclined DTIB, have resulted in Greece, and other countries like Greece, adopting ambitious defence reforms which have been initiated  by the country’s civilian leadership and jointly conceived and implemented with the Armed Forces leadership. Suffice it to mention Taiwan here, which recently extended conscription from a derisory four months to a year, injected realism into its Armed Forces training exercises, raised its defence expenditure, and sought to engage its manufacturing in the production of innovative military technologies.

Importantly, the comparative perspective enables us not only to assess and identify the progress that has been made, but also those domains where this has not been the case. In that context, this policy paper will conclude with three recommendations:

1. To the leadership of the Greek Parliament: Create a specialised Committee on National Defence by dividing the present Permanent Committee on National Defence and External Affairs into two. Support this new Committee with staff specialised in defence and adopt best practices, in terms of the mandate of this Committee, with regard to its oversight function, its classified and non-classified hearings, reports and so on.
2. To the leadership of the MND: first, further strengthen the civilianisation of the MND by creating a strategic planning division staffed by civilian defence experts and military officers, but led by civilians. And second, staff the MND’s procurement division with permanent civilian staff. In the former case, personnel will need to be attracted from the cohort of defence experts from the Greek diaspora, as defence studies does not exist as a discipline in Greek universities. In the latter case, a combination of resident and Greek technocrats who have graduated from prestigious Greek and international polytechnic schools should be favoured. We underline that this recommendation entails the hiring of permanent civilian staff through transparent meritocratic selection processes. The Minister of National Defence can retain the right to hire a small staff of special advisers (three to five, say) in a non-executive capacity, whose tenure would coincide with that of the Minister. This paper shares the view established by the literature that meritocratically selected permanent staff perform better than political appointees, and would argue that the Greek civil service in totality, and not just the staff of the MND, would perform better if ministerial general secretaries stopped being political appointees and were selected instead from the permanent civilian staff[78].
3. To the leadership of Greece’s two leading universities, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki: establish defence studies departments to be led by distinguished diaspora Greek defence studies scholars, so you can produce the research and the human resources that Greece’s civil-military relations need—specifically, in the MND, Parliament and civil society actors such as think tanks–to address Greece’s 21st-century national security challenges.

It is worth noting that the first two of these three recommendations in particular are being advocated explicitly on the basis of observed best practice in civil-military relations internationally, and of the principle of democratically-legitimated civilian supremacy,as early as the late 1980s, a little more than a decade after the collapse of the junta, by one of Greece’s leading constitutional scholars: Nikos Alivizatos. We would also argue that the third recommendation, too, is implicitly present in Alivizatos’ seminal work referenced above. After all, his emphasis on the need to narrow the asymmetry in expertise between the civilian and military leaderships points to the indispensable role Greece’s academic community should be playing as the prime generator of human pools of such expertise, thus providing the intellectual and techno-scientific personnel and analytical output the civilian leadership needs to exercise its democratic mandate in national defence. In effect, what this paper argues is that, half a century after the transition to democracy, in the era of the return of ‘Big War’, of a transformation in the conduct of warfare, and of a highly revisionist Turkey,  Greece’s democratic polity has even less of an excuse for ignoring the clarion call, first sounded in 1987 by Nikos Alivizatos, for the wholesale modernisation of civil-military relations.

Finally, we are convinced that—inter alia safeguarding meritocratic selection in the Armed Forces; containing corruption in weapons procurement; establishing a regular publication cycle for defence doctrine and force structure documents to  distill military knowledge and ensure continuity in the evolution of the Armed Forces; defending the competence and authority of the officer corps to convert citizens into soldiers primarily in Greece’s Land Army; pushing for joint operations which, by removingobstacles presented by either single-Service-Branch parochialism and/or of the present anachronistic system of an all-powerful Chief of HNDGS, is a positive sum game for all services branches as well as for the country’s ability to defend itself; and developing and disseminating the strategic foresight that can mitigate, if not eliminate, the boom and bust cycle that so often bedevils fiscal commitment in the defence of democratic polities, Greece’s included—such a modernisation of civil-military relations cannot but be the greatest ally of the most competent and driven members of Greece’s officer corps.

 

[1]Indeed, the only reference the author could find to the performance of the Armed Forces under the junta was a review of a book written by a defence correspondent on the Greek Armed Forces’ single engagement with the invading Turkish Army, Καβαλλιεράκης, Στέφανος, ΕΛΔΥΚ: Η Τελευταία Μάχη – Έλληνες στρατιώτες χωρίς ταυτότητες αναγνώρισης, Τα Νέα, 20-21 Ιουλίου, 2024 [Kavallierakis Stefanos, ELDKYK: The last battle: Greek soldiers without dog tags, Ta Nea, 20-21 July 2024]. A recent edited volume on the junta does not address the way it managed the Armed Forces, see Anastasakis, Othon, and Katerina Lagos, eds. The Greek Military Dictatorship: Revisiting a Troubled Past, 1967–1974. Berghahn Books, 2021.

[2] The most recent contribution to Greek civil-military relations that the author could locate does not address the issue of second-generation reforms, see Tsarouhas, Dimitris. “Greece: From Overt Military Activism to Democratic Normality.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. 2020.

[3] Αλιβιζάτος, Νίκος “Η συνταγματική θέση των Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων: Η αρχή του πολιτικού ελέγχου.” (1987). ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΑΝΤ. Ν. ΣΑΚΚΟΥΛΑ, 1987 [Alivizatos, Nikos, The constitutional position of the Armed Forces: The principle of civilian control, ANT. N. SAKOULAS EDITIONS, 1987]

[4] Cottey, Andrew, Timothy Edmunds, and Anthony Forster. “The second generation problematic: Rethinking democracy and civil-military relations”Armed Forces & Society 29.1 (2002): 31-56.

[5] Croissant, Aurel, et al. “Theorizing civilian control of the military in emerging democracies: Agency, structure and institutional change.” Zeitschrift für vergleichende Politikwissenschaft 5.1 (2011), p. 77.

[6]See the introduction to a special volume on this issue, Mello, Patrick A., and Dirk Peters. “Parliaments in security policy: Involvement, politicisation, and influence.” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20.1 (2018): 3-18.

[7] See, Mukherjee, Anit, and David Pion-Berlin. “The fulcrum of democratic civilian control: re-imagining the role of defence ministries.” Journal of Strategic Studies 45.6-7 (2022): 783-797.

[8] Pion-Berlin, David, and Danijela Dudley. “Civil-military relations: What is the state of the field.” Handbook of military sciences (2020), p. 13.

[9] Mukherjee, Anit. “Fighting separately: Jointness and civil-military relations in India.” Journal of Strategic Studies 40.1-2 (2017): 6-34.

[10] Brooks, Risa A. “Integrating the civil–military relations subfield.” Annual Review of Political Science 22.1 (2019): 379-398.

[11] Pion-Berlin, David, Igor Acácio, and Andrew Ivey. “Democratically consolidated, externally threatened, and NATO aligned: finding unexpected deficiencies in civilian control.” Democratization 26.6 (2019): 1070-1087.

[12] For a succinct backgrounder see, DCAF – Geneva Center for Security Sector Governance, Parliaments-Roles and Responsibilities in good security sector governance, SSR Backgrounder Series. Geneva, 2019.

[13] Strong, James. “Democracy and Security in the UK: Why parliament matters.” (2021).

[14] Auerswald, David, Philippe Lagassé, and Stephen M. Saideman. “Some assembly required: explaining variations in legislative oversight over the armed forces.” Foreign Policy Analysis 19.1 (2023): p.4.

[15] For a discussion on how parliaments exercise their oversight functions across a diverse range of cases see, Auerswald, David, Philippe Lagassé, and Stephen M. Saideman. “Some assembly required: explaining variations in legislative oversight over the armed forces.” Foreign Policy Analysis 19.1 (2023)

[16] For an analysis of the Greek Parliament’s shortcomings in this domain (produced, not incidentally, by an international organization) see, Government Defence Integrity Index, Country Brief: Greece, Transparency International – Defence and Security, 2020.

[17] Strong, James. “Democracy and Security in the UK: Why parliament matters.” (2021).

[18] For a discussion of societal engagement with second generation reforms see, Douglas, Nadja. “The Role of Society in the Control of Armed Forces–Implications for Democracy.” Sicherheit und Frieden (S+ F)/Security and Peace (2015): 19-25.

[19] As has been the case with Israel in recent years see, Cohen, Amichai, and Stuart Alan Cohen. “Beyond the Conventional civil–military “gap”: Cleavages and convergences in Israel.” Armed Forces & Society 48.1 (2022): 164-184.

[20] For an analysis of neglect of the defence sector in -post authoritarian periods and the decidedly gradual development of defence studies as a discipline in academia see, Lima, Raphael C., Peterson F. Silva, and Gunther Rudzit. “No power vacuum: national security neglect and the defence sector in Brazil.” Defence Studies 21.1 (2021): 84-106.

[21] For a treatment of this issue in the militaries of key Latin American countries see, Solar, Carlos. “Trust in the military in post-authoritarian societies.” Current Sociology 70.3 (2022): 317-337.

[22] See, Beliakova, Polina. “Erosion by deference: Civilian control and the military in policymaking (Summer 2021).” Texas National Security Review, 4.3 (2021) and Friend, Alice Hunt, and Sharon K. Weiner. “Principals with Agency: Assessing Civilian Deference to the Military.” Texas National Security Review 5.4 (2022).

[23] See the introductory essay in the special volume, Mello, Patrick A., and Stephen M. Saideman. “The politics of multinational military operations.” Contemporary Security Policy 40.1 (2019): 30-37.

[24] Neal, Andrew W. “Parliamentary security politics as politicisation by volume.” European Review of International Studies 5.3 (2018): 70-93.

[25] Auerswald, David, Philippe Lagassé, and Stephen M. Saideman. “Some assembly required: explaining variations in legislative oversight over the armed forces.” Foreign Policy Analysis 19.1 (2023): orac034.

[26] See, Wagner, Wolfgang. “Is there a parliamentary peace? Parliamentary veto power and military interventions from Kosovo to Daesh.” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20.1 (2018): 121-134, Lagassé, Philippe, and Patrick A. Mello. “The unintended consequences of parliamentary involvement: Elite collusion and Afghanistan deployments in Canada and Germany.” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20.1 (2018): 135-157 and Lagassé, Philippe, and Justin Massie. “Parliamentarizing war: explaining legislative votes on Canadian military deployments.” International Relations (2023)

[27] See, Distler, Werner, and Miriam Tekath. “Knowledge and the governing of the interventionary object: Mali in the German parliament.” European Journal of International Security 8.3 (2023): 319-336.

[28] See, Bailes, Alyson JK. “Parliaments and National Strategy Documents: A comparative case-study from the Nordic region.” Geneva Center for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), Policy Paper 36 (2015), Raunio, Tapio. “Parliament as an arena for politicisation: The Finnish Eduskunta and crisis management operations.” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20.1 (2018): 158-174 and Jungwallius, Johanna. “Pushes and pokes: Towards understanding Swedish ‘mid-range’ security policy-making.” (2023).

[29] Reykers, Yf. “Strengthening parliamentary oversight of defence procurement: lessons from Belgium.” European security 30.4 (2021): 505-525.

[30] Narang, Vipin, and Paul Staniland. “Democratic accountability and foreign security policy: Theory and evidence from India.” Security Studies 27.3 (2018): 410-447.

[31] See Σωτηρόπουλος, Δημήτρης, Η κορυφή του πελατειακού κράτους: οργάνωση, στελέχωση και πολιτικοποίηση των ανώτερων βαθμίδων της κεντρικής διοίκησης στην Ελλάδα, 1974-2000, Ποταμός, 2001, [Sotiropoulos, Dimitris, The summit of the clientelistic state: organisation, manning and politicisation of the higher ranks of the central government in Greece 1974-2000, Potamos, 2001

[32] For example, favouritism played a significant role in appointments at ELDYK, the Greek Army contingent in Cyprus, up to the Turkish invasion of 1974, due to the higher compensation of officer corps postings in the island, see Βλάσσης, Σάββας, ΕΛΔΥΚ – Η τελευταία μάχη, ΔΟΥΡΕΙΟΣ ΙΠΠΟΣ, 2021 [Vlassis, Savas, ELDYK- The last battle, DOUREIOS IPPOS, 2021]

[33] See the following analysis by an ex-Chief of the Hellenic Army, Γκίνης, Κωνσταντίνος, Πολιτικο-στρατιωτικές σχέσεις στην Ελλάδα της κρίσεως (2008-2015) και το Δίλλημα της Κηδεμονίας, Στρατηγείν, 2019, Τεύχος 1, σελ. 1-32 (Ginis, Konstantinos, Civil-Military relations in crisis Greece (2008-2015) and the dilemma of Guardianship, 2019, Stratigein, Volume 1, pp. 1-32).

[34] Kornetis, Kostis. Children of the dictatorship: student resistance, cultural politics and the ‘long 1960s’ in Greece. Berghahn Books, 2022.

[35] See the following publication, in which Greek-Turkish strategic rivalry is selected as one of four highly illustrative rivalries worldwide, Colaresi, Michael P., Karen Rasler, and William R. Thompson. Strategic rivalries in world politics: Position, space and conflict escalation. Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 4-14.

[36] Αλιβιζάτος, Νίκος. “Η συνταγματική θέση των Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων: Η αρχή του πολιτικού ελέγχου.” (1987). ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΑΝΤ. Ν. ΣΑΚΚΟΥΛΑ, 1987 [Alivizatos, Nikos, The constitutional position of the Armed Forces: The principle of civilian control, ANT. N. SAKOULAS EDITIONS, 1987]

 

[37] See, Kamaras, Antonis, Beating the authoritarian legacy: upgrading conscription in Greece and Taiwan, War on the Rocks, September 7 2022.

[38] See, Kamaras, Antonis, Establishing defence Studies in Greece? It’s high time, ELIAMEP Policy Paper 41, October 2020

[39] The author of this policy paper was taken aback by the venomous contempt articulated by an ex-General of the Hellenic Army in relation to the value of advice offered by civilian advisors to the Minister of National Defence.

[40] See, Kamaras, Antonis, Joint Operations in the Greek Armed Forces: Much to be desired, much to be achieved, ELIAMEP Policy Paper 151, January 2024.

[41] See, Γκίνης, Κωνσταντίνος, Εθνική Ασφάλεια: Υπάρχει επαρκής χώρος για αποτελεσματική στρατιωτική εισήγηση; Στρατηγείν,2020, Τεύχος 2, σελ. 1-18 (Ginis, Constantinos, National Security: is there sufficient space for effective military advice? Stratigein, 2020, Volume 2, pp. 1-18).

[42] Ibid.

[43] For an analysis of the awkward relationship between PASOK’s modernisers and the Armed Forces see, Καμάρας, Αντώνης, Εκσυγχρονιστές και Εθνική Άμυνα, GR Diplomatic Review, Μάιος 2021 [Kamaras, Antonis, Modernisers and National Defence, GR Diplomatic Review, May 2021]

[44] Ferreira da Silva, Peterson, and Augusto WM Teixeira Júnior. “The relationship between defence policy, the defence budget, and force structure in contemporary Brazil.” BRASILIANA: Journal for Brazilian Studies 10.2 (2021).

[45] Pion-Berlin, David, Igor Acácio, and Andrew Ivey. “Democratically consolidated, externally threatened, and NATO aligned: finding unexpected deficiencies in civilian control.” Democratization 26.6 (2019): 1070-1087.

[46] Mukherjee, Anit. “Fighting separately: Jointness and civil-military relations in India.” Journal of Strategic Studies 40.1-2 (2017): 6-34.

[47] The author analyses this state of affairs in Kamaras, Antonis, Joint Operations in the Greek Armed Forces: Much to be desired, much to be achieved, ELIAMEP Policy Paper 151, January 2024.

[48] Αλιβιζάτος, Νίκος. “Η συνταγματική θέση των Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων: Η αρχή του πολιτικού ελέγχου.” (1987). ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΑΝΤ. Ν. ΣΑΚΚΟΥΛΑ, 1987 [Alivizatos, Nikos, The constitutional position of the Armed Forces: The principle of civilian control, ANT.N.SAKOULAS EDITIONS, 1987]

[49] See, Cohen, Eliot A. Supreme command: Soldiers, statesmen and leadership in wartime. Simon and Schuster, 2012.

[50] Ben-Ari, Eyal. “Taiwan’s changing military covenant and the armed forces’ institutional autonomy.” Center for Chinese Studies. http://ccs. ncl. edu. tw/ccs2/ENGLISH/research_info. aspx  (2019).

[51] Boeka, Ryan Layman. The Politics of Reform: How Elite and Domestic Preferences Shape Military Manpower Systems. Georgetown University, 2018 (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis).

[52] Kamaras, Antonis, Beating the Authoritarian legacy: upgrading conscription in Greece and Taiwan, War on the Rocks, 7 September 2022.

[53] Wagner, Wolfgang. “Is there a parliamentary peace? Parliamentary veto power and military interventions from Kosovo to Daesh.” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20.1 (2018): 121-134.

[54] For a forceful critique of the limited engagement of the Greek Armed Forces in multinational military operations, see  Γκαρτζονίκας, Παναγιώτης, Με το ένα πόδι η Ελλάδα σε συμμαχίες και στρατιωτικές αποστολές…, SLPress, 24.4.2023 [Gartzonikas, Panagiotis, Greece with one foot in alliances and military missions …, SLPress, 24.4.2023]

[55] For an analysis of the shortcomings of parliamentary oversight of defence in Greece, see Government Defence Integrity Index, Country Brief: Greece, Transparency International Defence and Security 2020.

[56] See relatedly Καμάρας, Αντώνης, Πρέπει να μιλήσουμε για το στρατιωτικό απόρρητο, ΤΑ ΝΕΑ, 27 Σεπτεμβρίου 2023 [Kamaras, Antonis We need to talk about military classified information, TA NEA, 27 September 2023]

[57] Indicatively, none of the 24 parliamentary commissions of inquiry staged over the entire fifty years of post-junta democratic rule have issued a report that would culminate in findings endorsed by all their members, see Σταυρόπουλος Λάμπρος, Ο μεταπολιτευτικός κανόνας των εξεταστικών, ΤΟ ΒΗΜΑ, 17 Μαρτίου 2024 [Stavropoulos Lambros, The democratic transition rule of commissions of inquiry, TO VIMA, 17 March 2024]. For an astute analysis of how hyper-partisanship has undermined the role of the Greek Parliament in establishing the causal reasons of policy failure, and thus setting the foundations for mitigation via policy reforms, see Τσούκας Χαρίδημος, Κ, Τέμπη: κομματική πόλωση, παραταξιακή σκέψη, Καθημερινή, 31 Μαρτίου 2024 [Tsoukas, Haridimos, K., Tempi: partisan polarization, factional thought, Kathimerini, 31 March 2024].

[58] Αλιβιζάτος, Νίκος. “Η συνταγματική θέση των Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων: Η αρχή του πολιτικού ελέγχου.” (1987). ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΑΝΤ. Ν. ΣΑΚΚΟΥΛΑ, 1987 [Alivizatos, Nikos, The constitutional position of the Armed Forces: The principle of civilian control, ANT. N. SAKOULAS EDITIONS, 1987]

[59] While the 2/5 rule was subsequently instituted in the constitutional revision of 2019, defence and foreign affairs were excluded, see Χρήστου, Βασιλική, Εξεταστικές Επιτροπές: Η αναθέωρηση που έμεινε μετέωρη, 18 Απριλίου 2024 [Hristou Vasiliki, Committees of Inquiry: the revision that was left incomplete, 18 April 2024]

[60] See, Γκαρτζονίκας, Παναγιώτης, Κλειδί η διακλαδικότητα για την άμυνα στο Αιγαίο, SLPress, 3 Δεκεμβρίου 2022 [Gartzonikas, Panagiotis, Jointness is key to the defence of the Aegean, SLPress, 3 December 2022] and Λυμπέρης, Παναγιώτη,ς Για μια νέα οικονομία της άμυνας-Τι πρέπει να συζητήσουμε προεκλογικά για τις ανάγκες των Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων, Καθημερινή, 2 Απριλίου 2024 [Liberis, Panagiotis, For a new economy of defence – What do we need to discuss pre-election for the needs of the Armed Forces, Kathimerini, 2 April 2024]

[61] Narang, Vipin, and Paul Staniland. “Democratic accountability and foreign security policy: Theory and evidence from India.” Security Studies 27.3 (2018): 410-447.

[62] For this aspect of the crisis’s impact on the evolution of Greek civil society, see Clarke, Jennifer, Huliaras, Asteris, and Sotiropoulos, Dimitris. Austerity and the third sector in Greece: Civil society at the European frontline. Routledge, 2016.

[63] See indicatively, Λασκαρίδης, Πάνος, Οι σχέσεις μας με την Τουρκία και η εθνική άμυνα: είμαστε σοβαροί;, Καθημερινή, 30 Σεπτεμβρίου 2019 [Laskaridis, Panos. Our relations with Turkey and national defence: are we serious?, 30th of September, 2019], Λασκαρίδης, Πάνος Αυταπόδεικτες αλήθειες, Καθημερινή, 12 Ιουλίου, 2020 [Laskaridis, Panos, Self-evident truths, Kathimerini, 12 July 2020].

[64] See, the investigative report by ‘Neoi Fakelloi’ on how the fiscal crisis had impacted the Hellenic Navy, in which recently retired high-ranking HN officers are remarkably frank, 21 May 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eA5h3x4ZLU

[65] Dokos, Thanos and Kollias, Christos, Greek defence spending in times of crisis: the urgent need for defence reforms, ELIAMEP Thesis, 26 April 2013.

[66] For an example of a specialist defence correspondent of this sort, see the defence news and analysis site doureios.com; for a scholarly journal run by retired officers, see strategein.gr.

[67] The author examines the interaction between philanthropy and pluralistic discourse during and beyond the fiscal crisis in Greece, in Kamaras, Antonis. “Diaspora and transnational philanthropy during the crisis and the shifting boundaries of state and civil society.” Diaspora Engagement in Times of Severe Economic Crisis: Greece and Beyond. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022. 71-93.

[68] On the increasing willingness of high-ranking retired officers to analyse the specific challenges facing the Greek Armed Forces, see the following op-ed by the retired Chief of the Fleet of the HN , Λυμπέρης, Παναγιώτης Για μια νέα οικονομία της άμυνας-Τι πρέπει να συζητήσουμε προεκλογικά για τις ανάγκες των Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων, Καθημερινή, 2 Απριλίου 2024 [Liberis, Panagiotis, For a new economy of defence: What do we need to discuss pre-election for the needs of the Armed Forces, Kathimerini, 2 April 2024]

[69]For a typical demonstration of the Prime Minister’s command and ownership of national defence, see Ομιλία του Πρωθυπουργού Κυριάκου Μητσοτάκη στην Βουλή στη συζήτηση του Νομοσχεδίου του Υπουργείου Εθνικής Άμυνας «Μέριμνα υπέρ του προσωπικού των Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων, εξορθολογισμός της νομοθεσίες Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων, οργάνωση της Εθνοφυλακής και άλλες διατάξεις [Speech by the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Parliament in the debate on the Ministry of National Defence draft law on “Caring for the Armed Forces personnel, rationalizing the Armed Forces legislation, organizing the National Guard and other ordinances”], https://www.primeminister.gr/2023/02/07/31227

[70] Δένδιας, Νίκος, Ένοπλες Δυνάμεις 2030 Νέα Εποχή στην Εθνική άμυνα [Dendias, Nikos: Armed Forces 2030: New Era in National Defence], https://dendias.gr/kyvernitiko-ergo/ypourgeio-ethnikis-amynas/

[71] For this wider context, see Kamaras, Αntonis, The Greek Defence Sector: Turning the page?, ELIAMEP Policy Paper 126, February 2023 and Kamaras, Antonis, Innovation and the Greek Armed Forces, ELIAMEP Policy Paper 163, May 2024

[72] See this link for a brief CV of the head of HCDI, https://www.athexgroup.gr/el/pantelis-tzortzakis

[73] Indicatively, the MND almost immediately reversed course on the issue of the intellectual property rights of its funded projects, once the start-up community and defence sector firms pointed out that the original draft law was out of line with standard international practice and would be a non-starter for innovative firms. See, Γαβριήλ, Ελένη, Κρίσιμη αλλαγή από το υπουργείο Άμυνας στο νομοσχέδιο για την καινοτομία, Business Daily, 16 Μαΐου 2024 [Gavriil, Eleni, Critical change by the Ministry of Defence in the draft law for innovation, Business Daily, May 2024].

[74] For a discussion of the lessons to be learned from the war by the Greek Armed Forces, and some of the challenges they face in being able to do so, see Kamaras, Antonis, Lessons learned from a year of war in Ukraine: A Greek Reading, ELIAMEP Policy Paper 137, June 2023

[75] The most recent example is the issuing of a 400-page report by a Dutch consultancy, led by a Greek, on how the plain of Thessaly, Greece’s most fertile agricultural area, should recover from a catastrophic 2023 flood, see, Γεωργοπούλου, Τάνια, Το σχέδιο να μη γίνει έρημος η Θεσσαλία, Καθημερινή, 13 Mάρτιος 2023 [Georgopoulou, Tania, The plan to prevent Thessaly becoming a desert, Kathimerini, 13 March 2023].

[76] See the announcement of the partnership between SEKPY and universities and research institutes in Northern Greece, Newsroom, DefencEduNet: ΑΕΙ και επιχειρήσεις συμμαχούν για την άμυνα, The Power Game, 18 Δεκεμβρίου 2023 [Newsroom, DefencEduNet: Universities and businesses join forces for defence, The Power Game, 18 December 2023] and the conference jointly organized by the University of Piraeus Finance Lab and the Army Officer Cadet School on the funding of defence innovation and industry, at the following link: https://bankfin.unipi.gr/fql/defencefin2024/.

[77] See most recently, Συνέντευξη στον Βασίλη Νέδο, Νίκος Δένδιας Υπουργός Εθνικής Άμυνας – Οι δεσμεύσεις των ΗΠΑ δεν έχουν εκπληρωθεί, Καθημερινή, 13 Οκτωβρίου 2024 [Interview with Vasilis Nedos, Nikos Dendias Minister of National Defence – the Commitments of the USA have not been fulfilled, Kathimerini, 13 October 2024]

[78] For a discussion of this issue in the case of the US, see Lewis, David, E. The Number of Political Appointees: A practical Research Guide, Center for Effective Government-Harris School of Public Policy, The University of Chicago, 2024.

On 6 November 2024, ELIAMEP hosted a roundtable in Athens on ‘The Importance of History and NATO’s Role in the New Era,’ sponsored by NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division.

Policy-makers and scholars examined NATO’s evolution into a global security cornerstone, addressing key challenges such as terrorism, Russian aggression, European defence autonomy, and emerging partnerships. Emphasis was placed on balancing internal unity with external pressures, highlighting NATO’s adaptability in maintaining stability amid shifting global dynamics. 

You can read the report that presents the key points of discussion here.