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Greece, as a member state of the European Union, has long advocated integration in the fields of foreign policy, security and defense. The course of the ambitious European project in these areas has so far continued to be implemented at a purely intergovernmental level, i.e. decisions are taken in the European Council by unanimity of the heads of national governments.

The ongoing deterioration of Greek-Turkish relations consists of Ankara's claim to expand its revisionist agenda. The positions of Erdogan and other Turkish institutional actors are obviously not consistent with international law, the state-centric international order and, of course, the more institutionally and normatively developed European order. This situation highlights the EU's inability to establish and implement a truly common foreign and defense policy. This particular European predicament becomes more evident when it concerns issues that affect the vital interests of a member state.

The High Representative for the CFSP, Federica Mogherini, stated, among other things: "Our relations with Turkey have reached a critical point". It is a fact that in several states and at the community level there is talk of a "temporary freeze" of the accession negotiations, while the foreign ministers of the EU member states reiterated their concerns about the recent developments in Turkey. They also highlighted their concerns about the submission of a legislative proposal to the Turkish parliament to reinstate the death penalty. At the same time, they underlined that Turkey is an important partner of the Union in the areas of economy, security, migration and foreign policy, especially with regard to Syria and Iraq. Ministers recalled that Turkey, as a candidate country, is expected to uphold the highest possible standards of democracy, including respect for human rights, the rule of law, fundamental freedoms and the right of everyone to a fair trial. Finally, they agreed on the importance of continuing the political dialogue with Turkey at all levels.

In response to the continuous Turkish statements, which question Greek sovereignty and sovereign rights, stemming from international law, the spokesperson for the European Union's Commission for Foreign Policy, Maja Kocijancic, stated: "The EU underlines that Turkey must unequivocally commit to good neighborly relations and calls on it to avoid any source of friction, threat or action directed against a Member State, which undermines good neighborly relations and the peaceful settlement of disputes" as well as: "the EU stresses the need to respect the sovereignty of Member States over their territorial waters and airspace." The aforementioned statements cover our country diplomatically, but they certainly do not explicitly provide it with the safeguards appropriate to a union of states that wishes, over time, to form a single political entity; the issue is not currently defined as Euro-Turkish.

Subsequently, the problematic functioning of the CFSP makes it difficult to exercise the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as independent of Atlantic commitments. This situation does not constitute an institutional but a structural weakness of the European space, due to strategic divergences and hierarchies of European states. Greece does not have the ability to bypass this dual reality, on the one hand the escalating Turkish hegemony and on the other hand the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP. The prospects for supranational integration in the field of defence, at the European level, are not as promising as some wish or hope for, even after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU. In particular, for Greece, the expectations that we will be protected from Turkish revisionism through a future institutional formation in the field of defense, except that this is in its infancy, do not assure us of the final form it will take, nor whether and how it will approach Turkey. For Greece and Cyprus, it will be more beneficial to pursue the implementation of more feasible goals such as financing, through resources that seem to be channeled for defense, industrial cooperation and possibly the provision of military equipment, as a compensation for the inability of the Union to collectively and uniformly provide the good of security to all its members, let alone those who need it most.

Therefore, instead of wondering in vain, especially in periods of aggravation of Greek-Turkish relations, why the CFSP and subsequently the ESDP have not reached the desired level, it would be more effective for us and more acceptable to our partners if we adapted to the current situation by obtaining what they are willing to offer us, rather than demanding guarantees that they are unwilling to provide us. As long as the establishment of a common military structure progresses, our country must take the lead in the whole project and not expect that the European military units will act immediately or that it will be able to use them voluntarily, against a possible Turkish action. 

Of course, the attitude so far is consistent with the dominant perception of a society, with a low sense of individual responsibility, whose standard of living was for a long time higher than its productive performance, considering this event marginally related to the emergence of the 2010 crisis. Then it wished to maintain its consumer prosperity with external help and subsequently demands that its debts be written off. It is therefore a logical consequence that it seeks, in addition to being maintained, also to be protected.

In closing, let us take a leap into the future, where the CFSP will have supranational characteristics, so the following question is posed as a working hypothesis: what really ensures that a decision by the supranational body will not "share" part of the Turkish "concerns"? The case of the supranational EMU is sufficiently instructive!