Athens, 31 August 2022

Members of the French Senate meet with members of Parliament’s Standing Committee on National Defence and Foreign Affairs

 The members of the Hellenic Parliament’s Committee on National Defence and Foreign Affairs Giorgos Koumoutsakos and Spilios Livanos met today at the Parliament with the members of the National Defence, Armed Forces and Foreign Affairs Committee of the French Senate Catherine Dumas and Isabelle Raimond-Pavero in the framework of the French Parliamentarians’ visit to Greece. The two sides exchanges views on developments in the wider region of the Eastern Mediterranean, reviewing and assessing challenges and pressures by regional actors, including Turkey. The purpose of the French delegation is to write a special report to be submitted to the French Senate, on the subject of rearmament and the burdening of the strategic environment in the Mediterranean. 

Mr Spilios Livanos informed the French delegation about the overall turn of the Turkish political leadership towards revisionism, as it manifests itself both in the rhetoric and in practice. He also informed the members of the French Senate about the ongoing violations of the territorial waters and airspace of Greece. He then referred to the instrumentalisation of the migration issue by the Turkish side, which organised and implemented a hybrid attack on the Evros land border, unabashedly manipulating mass migration flows toward our country in February 2020. The Greek MP said he was pleased with France’s and the US’s clear stance towards the Turkish provocations and estimated that a decisive factor in shaping this stance in favour of Greece is the publicising by the Greek government of the Turkish violations. In this context, Mr Livanos made available to the senators specific data and maps with the Turkish violations and claims.

Mr Giorgos Koumoutsakos, in his presentation, underlined that in the Eastern Mediterranean there are players of stability and players of instability. Turkey, he noted, unlike Greece, is clearly a destabilising factor in the region, as its revisionist foreign policy is its strategic choice. Furthermore, the upcoming elections in 2023 act as a factor favouring the escalation of provocations. Mr Koumoutsakos added that at the present time, when Europe is looking for ways to wean itself off Russian natural gas, the deposits of the Eastern Mediterranean are becoming more valuable. In this context, Turkey will persistently claim a role and participation in the new energy environment that is taking shape. In answer to a question on the EU’s stance towards Turkey, the Greek MP stressed that the EU’s response to Ankara’s revisionist policy should manifest in three consecutive stages: first deterrence, then dialogue and finally, cooperation. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, noted Mr Koumoutsakos, illustrates the grave threat that revisionist policies and powers pose to international peace and security, underlining that the West’s response to revisionist policies must be uniform. Subsequently, the EU must stand up to Turkish revisionism, the way it stood up to Russian revisionism, it must be a Churchill and not a Chamberlaine.

 

 

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