My dear friends, good day to you!
Turkey never abandoned even one of its claims against Greece. It did not withdraw the casus belli. It did not abandon the “Blue Homeland”. It did not stop questioning Greek sovereign rights. It did not withdraw from occupied Cyprus.
Turkey did not change with the policy of “calm waters”. What changed with this specific policy was the way Europe deals with it. And perhaps the greatest contribution of the policy of “calm waters” was not that tension in the Aegean was reduced, but that it facilitated precisely this change.
Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis said yesterday on SKAI that “calm waters are useful, but they are not an end in themselves.” It is hard for anyone to disagree with this observation. De-escalation is preferable to tension. The reduction of migratory flows is a positive development. Just as it is also positive that violations of Greek airspace have been significantly limited.
There is, however, a reasonable question. If “calm waters” are not an end in themselves, then what was their strategic goal? And, above all, what was their political result?
The timing of the statement also does not go unnoticed. It comes at a time when the government is trying to regain an audience to its right, while the discussion about the possible creation of a party by Antonis Samaras is already affecting the political scene.
A third observer could reasonably consider that the remark that “calm waters are not an end in themselves” constitutes an attempt at a change in political tone. But if only the rhetoric changes and not the policy, then we are faced with an obvious contradiction.
Because on the immediately previous day, on 30/06/2026, the European Union and Turkey signed in Ankara a joint communiqué that reflects their intention to deepen their cooperation in almost every critical field: in the economy, in security, in defense, in migration, in energy, in transport, even through new rounds of high-level institutional dialogue.
It is a text that hardly reminds one that it concerns the same Turkey. The country that continues to occupy European territory in Cyprus. That maintains the casus belli against Greece. That continues to question the sovereign rights of two member states of the European Union.
And “all this” while just a few days earlier, the European Parliament had adopted a particularly critical report on Turkey. It spoke of the retreat of the rule of law, democratic backsliding, human rights violations, the casus belli, the “Blue Homeland,” the occupation of Cyprus, and threats against Greece.
This is a glaring contradiction. But perhaps not only a European one.
Because foreign policy is not judged only by its intentions. It is also judged by its results. And the result is that today the European Union feels comfortable enough to build an ever closer strategic relationship with a country which, on paper at least, it still characterizes as problematic.
Why did this happen? Because Greece allowed it. Because when Greece itself invests politically in the image of normality, when it signs declarations of friendship and presents relations with Turkey as an example of de-escalation, it sends its partners a specific message: that the Greek-Turkish problem is no longer an obstacle to the upgrading of Euro-Turkish relations.
No one in Brussels could appear more concerned than Greece itself. And that is how we arrive at today. On the one hand, Athens declares that “calm waters” are useful but not an end in themselves, and on the other it is faced with a Europe that uses precisely this image of normality to bring Turkey back to the core of its strategy.
Diplomacy is not judged only by what you say to your opponent. It is also judged by the messages you send to your allies. If you convince them that the threat has been limited, you cannot be surprised when they begin to treat your opponent as a strategic partner.
Perhaps, in the end, “calm waters” are the greatest gift Greece gave to Turkey. Not because it changed Turkey. But because it helped change the way Europe sees it.