Dear friends, good day to you!
If we take at face value what Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis stated yesterday about the Greece-Cyprus electricity interconnection, speaking on SKAI, there is little anyone could add.
The route of the cable is not changing because of Turkish claims. Greece, and only Greece, will license the project. Turkey will be informed, as provided for navigation safety, but it will not be asked whether it agrees. And, above all, the survey and the laying will take place.
All of that is correct. Just as correct is the minister's reminder that the extension of territorial waters to 12 nautical miles is the country's right and remains, in his words, “in our quiver.”
Except that in foreign policy there is one essential difference between the declaration of a right and its exercise. Just as there is a difference between what International Law provides for and whether a country is determined to apply it when someone tries to prevent it. And somewhere here the declarations meet the precedent of Kasos.
In the summer of 2024, when the research vessel Ievoli Relume was carrying out work for the same electricity interconnection south of Kasos and Karpathos, Turkey challenged on the ground Greek jurisdiction by sending warships to the area.
What followed was a crisis of about 40 hours, which was de-escalated through diplomatic contacts. The essential point is that the surveys did not continue thereafter in the disputed area and the project remained frozen.
That is why Mr. Gerapetritis' statements yesterday carry particular weight.
They do not constitute simply yet another repetition of the standing Greek positions. The minister set a specific and fully measurable bar for the government.
And here lies perhaps the most important phrase of the interview. When asked what will happen even if Turkish warships stand in front of the vessel, the minister replies: “The survey and the laying will take place”. He leaves little room for interpretation.
This time, of course, the data are different. France's Meridiam has acquired the majority stake in the project company, Nexans is at the core of the cable's construction, and Paris now has a much more direct interest in its completion.
This is a substantial change compared with Kasos. But it does not change the real test.
That will come when the next NAVTEX is issued and the research vessel heads out again beyond Greek territorial waters, into the non-delimited maritime zones where Athens and Ankara advance different claims. There it will be judged whether Turkey will indeed confine itself to the role of the one who is informed and not the one who considers that it must consent. And there it will be judged whether Greece will do what today it declares it is entitled to do.
Mr. Gerapetritis, therefore, said all the right things. And rightly so. After Kasos, however, the issue is not yet another assurance that the cable will be laid. It is for the surveys finally to be carried out so that it can be laid. The bar was set by the minister himself. And he set it high.
Now it remains to be proven, in the field, that action can clear it.