Dear friends, good morning!
In diplomacy, as in life, it is not always enough to be right. At some point, you also have to be able to assert it. That is precisely the problem created for Greece by the decision by Libya’s House of Representatives to approve the 2019 Turkish-Libyan memorandum.
The decision in Benghazi does not make lawful a delimitation that ignores the existence of Greek islands and effectively treats Turkey and Libya as opposite coastal states. Nor can a bilateral agreement deprive a third state of its rights. Greece’s and the European Union’s position on this is well known and steadfast.
For six years, the same parliament that has now approved the memorandum had rejected it. Yesterday, it unanimously overturned that decision and at the same time restored political relations with Ankara.
One argument against the agreement — that it had not been approved by the Libyan parliament — no longer holds. More importantly, however, something of greater political significance disappears: eastern Libya as a counterweight to Turkish policy.
Turkey, which signed the memorandum with the Tripoli government in 2019 and then gave military support to its side against Haftar’s forces, has now managed to restore relations with the other side as well. That is a diplomatic outcome, and it directly affects us.
Because the Turkish-Libyan agreement is not simply a map that, according to the European Union, violates the sovereign rights of third states and is inconsistent with the Law of the Sea. It is part of Turkey’s thinking on maritime zones in the Eastern Mediterranean: in Ankara’s view, the Greek islands cannot prevent the projection of Turkey’s mainland coast southwards.
Among other things, this view is challenged by the 2020 Greece-Egypt agreement on the partial delimitation of their EEZs. Two different agreements. Two different maps. Two incompatible views of the same sea. And that is where the cable runs.
The Great Sea Interconnector, a €1.9 billion project intended to connect Crete electrically with Cyprus and later Israel, is preparing to resume the bathymetric surveys halted in 2024. At the time, east of Kasos and Karpathos, Turkey challenged the right to conduct the surveys without prior coordination with it. The survey vessel withdrew and is now preparing to return. In other words, we are two steps away from the moment of truth.
The GSI does not cross the Turkey-Libya delimitation line itself. That lies much further south. But it passes through an area that Ankara includes within its own continental shelf, based on the same view that gave rise to the Turkish-Libyan agreement.
That is why ratification in Benghazi does not create the problem of the cable. It makes it politically more difficult.
Ankara can now argue that the 2019 agreement is not simply the product of a Tripoli government, rejected by the other half of Libya. The parliament that denounced it for years has now approved it.
Athens has strong legal arguments. It has the partial delimitation agreement with Egypt, concluded in accordance with international law of the sea. It also has public US support for the GSI.
And it is not alone. The Foreign Ministry rejected Benghazi’s decision yesterday, describing the Turkish-Libyan agreement as “illegal, invalid and without legal foundation” and announcing that Greece had already informed its partners and allies and would take all appropriate action to safeguard its sovereign rights.
A few hours later, António Costa and Ursula von der Leyen reiterated that the memorandum violates the sovereign rights of third states, is inconsistent with the Law of the Sea and is “invalid and without legal effect”, while explicitly expressing the European Union’s solidarity with Greece and Cyprus.
All useful. And all important. But statements do not lay the cable. It is laid on the seabed.
When the survey vessel returns east of Kasos and Karpathos, it will have to continue on its course without recognising Turkish jurisdiction where Greece says none exists. Much more than the fate of an energy project will be decided there.
For six years, Athens and Ankara have put forward maps, coordinates, diplomatic notes and legal arguments. At some point, however, the maps meet the sea.
And that moment is approaching.