Greece ratifies landmark intra-NATO defence pact with France
According to ALJAZEERA, Greece on Thursday ratified a mutual defence pact with France, the first between two NATO members.
The two countries are already bound to help each other from an attack originating outside the alliance. But the Strategic Partnership on Defence and Security for the first time joins two NATO members to support one another from an attack originating inside the alliance.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hailed the agreement as the cornerstone of an independent European defence policy.
“The defence of European interests in the Mediterranean now acquires new substance,” Mitsotakis told parliament. “If attacked, our country will have at its side the most powerful military on the continent, the sole European nuclear power.”
Article 2 of the Partnership states that the pair will assist each other “with all the means at their disposal, in the event that armed force is needed, if they both ascertain that an attack is taking place against the territory of either.”
Greece’s main security threat comes from fellow NATO member Turkey.
The two nearly came to open hostilities in August last year as they battled over their conflicting claims to the Eastern Mediterranean.
They nearly went to war over the Imia islets in the Aegean in 1996, and over oil and gas exploration in 1987. The greatest threat of war during the last century came in 1974, when Turkey militarily intervened in Cyprus, in response to a brief Greek-backed coup.
“We’ve lived with NATO’s unwillingness [to deal with Turkey] since the 1950s, because Article 5 doesn’t cover threats among alliance members,” said Athanasios Platias, professor of strategy at the University of Piraeus.
The pact is Greece’s second formal security guarantee against Turkey. It signed a mutual defence pact with the United Arab Emirates last November.
Turkish-French relations have also deteriorated since Ankara assumed a military role in the Libyan civil war in October 2019. France sees Turkey as a rival for influence in North Africa.
Mitsotakis and French president Emmanuel Macron oversaw the signing of the Partnership on September 28.
They also announced Greece will buy up to four French-built Belharra frigates and up to four French GoWind corvettes with state-of-the-art radar and hypersonic missiles for up to $5bn. Greece has also committed to buy 24 French Rafale fighter jets for $2.5bn.
