Greece’s parliament on Tuesday approved a 3 billion euro ($3.4 billion) agreement for three new French-made frigates amid ongoing tensions with neighbor Turkey.
Lawmakers also voted in favor of adding six new Rafale fighter jets to an existing order for 18 planes ‒ six of them newly built and 12 that were previously in service in the French air force.
NATO members Greece and Turkey remain at odds over maritime boundaries and mineral exploitation rights in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. A Turkish oil and gas survey in 2020 resulted in a tense naval standoff between the two countries.
Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said the Greek military needs to modernize following repeated funding cuts during the country’s acute 2010-18 financial crisis.
"There is no armament program that is ‘slightly necessary’ or ‘somewhat necessary’," Panagiotopoulos told lawmakers Monday during a committee-level debate in parliament.
"All of the armament programs that we have submitted for approval, in one way or another, are absolutely necessary for the armed forces ‒ extremely necessary, urgently necessary."
The purchases were approved by the the center-right government's 157 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament, with the backing of two opposition parties. The left-wing opposition party opposed the additional purchase of French fighter jets.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and French President Emmanuel Macron finalized the frigate deal last year along with an enhanced defense cooperation agreement between their countries.
Mitsotakis denied claims by political opponents that the purchases could rattle the Greek economy, which is already saddled with high deficits due to pandemic spending and a huge national debt worth more than twice the country’s annual output.
"The program addresses the needs of the armed forces, it helps maintain our strong alliances, it’s being implemented at a fast pace and it mobilizes forces in our national economy, but it will not upset the necessary fiscal balance," he told lawmakers.
Made by France's Naval Group, two warships are due to be delivered in 2025 and the third the following year, with an option to add a fourth frigate to be ready in 2027.
Turkey described Greece’s moves of arming itself as "futile."
"This is not an arms race, it is an arms show. They (Greece) try to achieve superiority over Turkey by arming up in their own way with the encouragement and provocations of certain countries. This is a futile effort," Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said during a ministry awards ceremony in the capital Ankara.
Turkey, which has the longest continental coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean, has rejected maritime boundary claims made by European Union members Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration, stressing that these excessive claims violate the sovereign rights of both Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Both sides cite a range of treaties and international agreements from over the decades to support their conflicting territorial claims.
Turkish leaders have repeatedly stressed that Ankara favors resolving outstanding problems in the region through international law, good neighborly relations, dialogue and negotiations. Instead of opting to solve problems with Ankara through dialogue, Athens has, on several occasions, refused to sit at the negotiation table and opted to rally Brussels to take a tougher stance against Turkey.
Both countries also disagree on the status of the islands in the Aegean.
Recently, several Turkish government officials including Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu have said that Greece was losing its sovereign rights over numerous islands in the eastern Aegean because it had militarized them.
Ankara also sent similar messages to the United Nations, arguing that the militarization of the islands was not permitted under the Treaties of Lausanne (1923) and Paris (1947).