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"Where did Greece retreat?" the prime minister asks. Here is the answer

He writes Andreas Stalidis.

The Prime Minister recalls the overall actions in foreign policy in recent years.

1. Expansion of territorial waters 12 miles in the Ionian Sea and EEZ with Italy
   2. EEZ with Egypt securing rights south of Crete
   3. National Maritime Spatial Planning ("with the seal of Europe we capture on a map the maximum potential limits of the Greek continental shelf"
   4. Marine parks on islands, "so that we can exercise sovereignty (not sovereign rights) in a zone around the islands"
   5. Mining, e.g. Chevron south of Crete

So, the prime minister asks, "where exactly did Greece retreat as a result of the Athens Declaration"?

I really didn't expect such a distance between the prime minister's words and reality! I reply.

1. Expansion of territorial waters 12 miles in the Ionian Sea and EEZ with Italy

Yes, it extended the territorial waters to 12 miles in the Ionian Sea. It did well. Of course, there are many voices that said and continue to say that the fact that we extended them to the Ionian Sea, while since 1995 we have had the position that "we will extend to 12 miles everywhere, whenever we deem it necessary" means that by definition we consider the Aegean Sea, where we did not extend them, to be a special sea. The reason that from 1995 to 2020 no government did so was precisely this.

At the same time, yes, the EEZ with Italy was agreed. But pay attention to something. These are not new negotiations with Italy. The maps and the agreement with Italy from 1977 were used, that is, BEFORE the signing of the Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982 in Montego Bay. This means that those maps with Italy (which the government simply withdrew and signed) gave a larger part of the maritime area to Italy than the simple application of the median line. In order to satisfy both sides, that is, on the one hand Italy that insisted on the larger areas, on the other hand Greece to present an agreement with the median line, what was finally agreed by the ND government was the following: that both countries recognize the EEZ of the other, but Greece surrenders fishing rights to Italy WITHIN the Greek EEZ in specific areas. In those that existed on the 1977 maps.

This has been judged negatively by some analysts, because in practice, we are giving Italy more rights than the median line. Personally, for me, this is not a big negative, because I maintain that Italy recognized the Greek EEZ up to the median line (so, Turkey cannot claim, for example, that since we conceded something to Italy, let's concede something to them too). From there, if AFTER the recognition of the full Greek EEZ, Greece gives additional fishing rights to Italy for its own reasons, this is secondary. In my opinion, I repeat, this view. Secondary does not mean that it does not exist, but simply secondary.

The negative (for me) of the agreement with Italy is that the expansion had to happen everywhere at the same time or nowhere.

2. EEZ with Egypt.

Here, Mr. Mitsotakis is misleading us and I am surprised that the journalist did not point it out. The agreement with Egypt had two major negatives.
A. Greece and Egypt made a PARTIAL and not a complete demarcation. Only up to the middle of Rhodes.
B. Greece ceded 10% influence of Crete and 30% influence of the triad of islands of Kasos-Karpathos-Rhodes.

This reduced influence is evident in the maps that Greece presented (see point 3 below).
This reduced influence has already been publicly stated by government officials (e.g. Nikos Tsafos, special advisor to the Prime Minister) that it could form the basis for a corresponding retreat towards Turkey."

So here's a retreat.

3. National Maritime Spatial Planning ("with the seal of Europe we capture on a map the maximum potential limits of the Greek continental shelf"

The joke of the decade.

In 2014, the Greek government held the EU presidency for the first half of the year. At that time, Ms. Damanaki was the Commissioner for Fisheries. That was perhaps the only time that there was cooperation between the two and a European directive was written in favor of Greece. This was the Maritime Spatial Planning. A 7-year deadline was given, until 2021, for it to be done. 2021 came and ALL EU countries, except Greece, drafted it. Years passed and Greece did nothing. Greece was condemned by the European Court of Justice for not doing so. In court, it claimed that it could not do so due to geopolitical concerns of third countries (essentially, intimidation of Turkey). Greece was convicted a SECOND time by the court (February 2025), which explicitly expressed the view that this is an obligation towards the EU and it does not matter what other countries outside the EU say or do. Thus, Greece actually issued a map with MSP late and having started paying fines for the delay.

This map has a few problems.

a. It is NOT Marine Spatial Planning! It would be if it did regular spatial planning, that is, defining space and use. Saying in which area you will allow navigation, fishing, environmental protection, mammal protection (marine parks), energy, etc. It did none of these.
b. what the Prime Minister said (“with the seal of Europe we are marking on a map the maximum potential limits of the Greek continental shelf”) is a hole in the water. The potential limits of the Greek continental shelf are defined by the median line. We do not need a European seal for this. We need a European seal not to define the potential limits, but to make them REAL limits. To define them. To declare them.
c. Also, the potential limits of this map are limited. On the one hand (point 2) this map issued by Greece proves that indeed the EEZ agreement with Egypt was bad, because we conceded influence, as I said above. See the line between Crete and Rhodes how it jumps up.
d. these potential limits that the Prime Minister says include 6-mile territorial waters in the eastern Aegean islands and not 12.

4. Marine parks.

Here we have the bear's laugh.

The government initially (April 2024) announced two unified marine parks. 12 months later (April 2025) it announced DISTORTED parks! A park with a 6-mile radius around dozens of islands. In other words, it broke the unified park into many small parks with a radius of the territorial waters of each island! So, the sovereignty that it supposedly won, we already had, since these parks are within 6 miles. The exact opposite happened. The intimidation of Turkey was consolidated, which protested and we essentially succumbed to its desires that for everything we do beyond 6 miles we should ask it.

5. Chevron mining.

This is indeed positive. Of course, this was based on the "land-plating" that had taken place 12 years earlier and the licensing agreements that had preceded it. It is not something that the current government started. It took it over and continued it.

But beyond the 5 that the Prime Minister mentioned, there are other issues that he did not mention. I continue the numbering.

6. Electric cable.

Greece has been trying for 3 years to lay an electrical cable to connect Greece with Cyprus. It cannot go 6 miles outside Kasos. An Italian ship, chartered by the Greek government, tried three times and was confronted by Turkish military personnel, so it retreated. Despite the foreign minister's assurances that the project will proceed and be completed normally, it has bogged down and nothing is being done. Another consolidation of Turkey's intimidation that everything we do beyond 6 miles must receive its approval.

I would add that you can lay an electric cable not only in your own potential EEZ, not only in international waters, but even in the territorial waters of another state, with simple notification. But we can't even 6 miles from Kasos!

7. Blue Homeland (or Blue Fantasy)

9 months after the Athens Declaration, that is, in September 2024, the Turks put the concept of the Blue Homeland, but also of the National Oath (i.e. the borders of their heart, which include Thessaloniki, among others) in the school curriculum! Also, legislation is imminent for this fantasy, according to which the Aegean is divided in half, ignoring the existence of the Greek islands!

8. Long-term NAVTEX.

I remind you that Turkey has declared for the first time in history NAVTEX with a duration of 2 years for areas of the Aegean! Unprecedented. They expire in December 2027!

Finally, let me say that he could ask the Minister of National Defense, Nikos Dendias, about all of this, who, although he was also celebrating the Athens Declaration in 2023, stated a month ago that he "never believed in calm waters."

So this is in response to the Prime Minister.

antibaro.gr