The new plan aims to modernize the armed forces of Greece while the country emerges from a financial crisis of a decade and tries to follow the pace of the progress of the defense of its neighbor and its historic rival, Turkey.
This comes in the pressure of US President Donald Trump on NATO allies to spend more in defense. Greece already spends more than 3% of its GDP on its soldiers, more than double the EU average.
Mitsotakis has criticized the approach to the defense of Europe in recent decades, arguing that “Europe has been geopolitically naive” and “did not understand geopolitical contexts”. The continent rushes to dissuade the challenge posed by Russia and support Ukraine while Trump is withdrawing from traditional American foreign policy.
“In 2017, the American president then and current, in the particular way of expressing himself, said a great truth: that after the fall of the wall (Berlin) and the collapse of socialism, Europe has given up its defense obligations towards the United States, without the EU fulfilling its obligation towards NATO,” he said.
“Europe cannot claim today and say in this jungle that it is a herbivore in the middle of the carnivores.”
The weapons supply of Greece, which will extend until 2036, will have a strong cyber-concentration and will include unmanned vehicles, blur ammunition, drones, a communication satellite, as well as an anti-missile, anti-aircraft and anti-drone dome called the “Achilles shield”.
