OPINION — In a world the place world energy is not solely fought over via use of navy may however gained via wit, diplomacy, and innovation, Greece is recasting its story. Main that transformation, no less than in Financial Diplomacy, is Greece’s new Deputy International Minister Harry Theoharis, a person who envisions a brand new Greece: one which equates protection modernization with financial diplomacy to place the nation as a severe regional participant within the Japanese Mediterranean and past.
In his first public remarks when he took the function in late June, Theoharis was clear: Financial diplomacy is not only a query of endorsing commerce missions or signing memos. The first objective is to make use of it as a strategic multiplier—to synergize Greece’s enhanced protection capabilities, its growing innovation financial system, and its world partnerships right into a single linked, cohesive, forward-looking overseas coverage message.
Up to now, protection and diplomacy have run parallel programs in Greece. With this new Deputy International Minister on the helm, these programs have begun to cross over. Greece’s will quickly come to see that multi-billion-euro investments (determined from 2020 to in the present day) in protection modernization—new Rafale fighter planes, Belharra-class frigates, air protection missiles, and superior weapons methods—might serve a twin goal: bolstering nationwide safety whereas offering worldwide partnerships and market alternatives.
Deputy International Minister Theoharis has deliberately linked protection procurement with export promotion and industrial cooperation. Exhibitions like DEFEA (Protection Exhibition Athens) usually are not simply navy exhibitions anymore; they’re statecraft instruments, welcoming generals but in addition buyers, tech startups, and overseas ministers. The message is unambiguous: Greece isn’t solely defending its borders anymore. It sells its capabilities, innovation, and reliability.
Below this new strategy, Greek financial diplomacy additionally goes hi-tech. In collaboration with the Ministry of Protection, Greece’s Hellenic Middle for Protection Innovation (HCDI) has established itself as a magnet for worldwide buyers and R&D facilities. Its work on the promotion of dual-use applied sciences – AI, drones, cyber protection, and safe communications – which have put Greece on the map as a enterprise accomplice in NATO and EU innovation ecosystems.
Initiatives comparable to joint symposia with France and rising cooperation with India and Armenia usually are not simply symbolic. They’re pitches for funding. Protection is the icebreaker; financial cooperation is the primary course.
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Some of the astute steps Greece has taken is to put itself not merely as a purchaser of protection merchandise, however as a regional hub for coaching, logistics, and training.
Kalamata worldwide pilot coaching middle, working in collaboration with Israel, is now of curiosity to a number of different nations. Latest agreements involving cooperation with Armenia, Cape Verde, and Egypt on navy training, simulation know-how, and logistical help usually are not protection agreements—these are medium- and long-term undertakings that convey collectively state safety with institutional belief and financial interplay.
By linking navy coaching programs with financial diplomacy missions, Greece has rewritten its narrative: not a client of safety, however a producer of safety. Now not a minor participant within the area, however a gateway to Europe, the Center East, and Africa.
The important thing to the success of Deputy International Minister Theoharis might be in his means to marry imaginative and prescient with operational accuracy. His ministry has launched such devices as myOEY.dwell.gov.gr to hurry up export licensing and investor involvement, opening Greece to overseas companions. Now he should additionally assist to strengthen the International Direct Funding Screening Mechanism to maintain Greece open – however not susceptible – to overseas capital in strategic sectors like power, infrastructure, and protection know-how.
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This emphasis on transparency, governance, and digital effectivity isn’t bureaucratic, it is strategic. It is a sign to potential companions and buyers: Greece means enterprise. To succeed, Greece should additional develop and consolidate its working high-value partnerships:
– With France, via protection innovation and industrial co-development
– With India, via the first-ever Greece–India protection settlement and navy workout routines like “Iniochos”
– With Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in areas from air protection to maritime safety, to power diplomacy.
– With Armenia, in protection business collaboration and joint coaching initiative.
All these alliances started as a safety dialogue, however in time turned broader diplomatic and financial alternatives.
Greece’s fashionable historical past has been outlined by disaster: financial, immigration, geopolitical. However now a unique story is being written: certainly one of confidence, competence, and planning and the Hellenic Ministry of International Affairs takes a entrance seat to that. The portfolio of the Deputy International Minister for Financial Diplomacy and Extroversion is paramount to the profitable integration of those areas.
The brand new Deputy International Minister is already exhibiting {that a} clear, coherent imaginative and prescient can alter how a nation is perceived and the way it operates. Protection is not only weapons anymore; it is alliances. Diplomacy is not only friendliness anymore; it is improvement. And financial coverage is not only homegrown anymore; it is worldwide, strategic, and safety oriented.
By bringing collectively the nation’s protection modernization plans (already fifth in NATO for a number of years by way of spending as a share of GDP), innovation potential, and overseas funding technique, Greece can rise as a serious, multidimensional world participant.
Greece should not take a look at overseas coverage, protection, and financial planning in isolation and as a substitute present the world that it doesn’t simply react to the world’s challenges, however gives options and long-standing partnerships. In different phrases, in a world gone mad, Greece proves that it may be an trustworthy mediator amongst state actors and an island of stability for the West.
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