Turkey and Libya have revived the 2019 maritime memorandum, an agreement Greece considers illegal and which the European Union says cannot produce legal consequences for third states. Yet here we are again; another signature, another political challenge, another round of Greek protests, another reassuring statement from Brussels and another demonstration that Kyriakos Mitsotakis's foreign policy has been spectacularly bad at protecting Greek interests.
This is not a legal failure; it is a political failure. After years in power, Mitsotakis can no longer pretend that every Turkish move is simply an unfortunate surprise arriving from Ankara.
Turkey has been remarkably consistent. It creates claims, repeats them, institutionalises them, puts them on maps, attaches them to agreements and waits for everyone else to react. Athens reacts. That is the problem.
Mitsotakis has had years to construct a strategy capable of moving Greece from permanent reaction to permanent deterrence. Instead, Greece repeatedly finds itself in the same humiliating position, Ankara produces another document or declaration, Tripoli endorses it and Athens calls a press conference to explain why the document is illegal.
Yes, it is illegal according to Greece's position and according to the EU's stated assessment. So what? Invading Cyprus and occupying part of the island was also illegal, condemned globally and far beyond EU and UN, yet after 52 years we are still …negotiating with the invader and occupant.
If the answer to every Turkish manoeuvre is another Greek legal objection, then Athens is effectively allowing Ankara to set the agenda. And that is precisely what Mitsotakis should be judged on. A prime minister does not receive unlimited political credit simply because his government possesses the better legal argument. Foreign policy is not a university examination in which the student who writes the correct answer receives a gold star while somebody else walks away with the territory, the contracts, the strategic initiative, and the headlines.
The Eastern Mediterranean is not a courtroom frozen in time. It is a living geopolitical space involving energy exploration, shipping, undersea cables, military deployments, and billions in investment. Commercial actors do not operate according to legal theory alone; they calculate political risk.
Turkey understands this. Create enough uncertainty and companies hesitate. Challenge enough projects and governments reconsider. Keep a maritime claim alive for long enough and eventually it becomes part of the background risk calculation.
This is where Mitsotakis's record deserves an uncomfortable examination. Where is the Greek strategy that makes these repeated Turkish provocations strategically expensive?
Where is the mechanism that ensures Greek and Cypriot energy infrastructure proceeds regardless of Turkish objections? Where is the sustained diplomatic campaign that turns the Turkish-Libyan memorandum from a recurring crisis into an international liability for those invoking it? Where is the European response that moves beyond declarations and actually imposes consequences when the same challenge is repeatedly revived?
And why, after all these years, does Greece still appear surprised every time Ankara does exactly what Ankara has been doing?
This is not about demanding that Greece manufacture a military confrontation. Quite the opposite, a serious foreign policy should reduce the opportunities for confrontation by making the boundaries of acceptable behaviour unmistakably clear.
Deterrence is not achieved by issuing increasingly irritated statements. Nor is it achieved by assuming that because Greece has friends, those friends will automatically do the heavy lifting.
The European Union can support Greece. Egypt can cooperate with Greece. Cyprus can coordinate with Greece. France and other partners can strengthen regional security. But ultimately, Athens must have a strategy of its own.
Mitsotakis has spent enormous political capital presenting Greece as a stronger, more confident European power. Yet on this issue, Greece still behaves like the defendant repeatedly summoned back to explain the same case.
Turkey submits the claim. Libya signs. Athens protests. Brussels comments. And then everybody waits for the next episode. That is not strategic success; that is geopolitical Groundhog Day and sadly is not the first time I point it out.
The most painful part is that Greece has done much of the difficult work. It has powerful legal arguments, legitimate maritime interests, strategic partners, EU membership, agreements with regional states and an increasingly important role in energy and infrastructure.
What it has lacked is the political imagination to turn those assets into an enduring strategic architecture. Mitsotakis's foreign policy has too often confused diplomatic activity with diplomatic achievement.
There is a fundamental difference. A government can hold hundreds of meetings, sign agreements, issue declarations and pose for photographs while the underlying problem becomes more entrenched.
That is exactly what should terrify Athens. Turkey does not need to prove that its memorandum is universally accepted. It only needs to keep it alive. It only needs to make investors hesitate. It only needs to force Greece to spend political and diplomatic energy defending the same position over and over again.
It only needs to ensure that every commercial or energy initiative around Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus and the wider Eastern Mediterranean comes with another geopolitical footnote. Mitsotakis has allowed this game to continue for far too long. The prime minister cannot forever hide behind the comforting notion that international law is on Greece's side.
Of course it matters. But international law without strategic enforcement becomes a beautiful shield made of paper. The Turkish-Libyan memorandum may remain legally defective. The EU may continue to reject its implications. Greece may continue to have the stronger legal case. But if Ankara can repeatedly force Athens into defensive diplomacy, then Mitsotakis has already lost something far more important than an argument, he has lost the initiative.
That is the real scandal of this latest episode. Greece does not need another speech explaining why the map is wrong. It needs a government capable of making the people drawing the wrong map pay a strategic price for drawing it. After years of Mitsotakis, that remains conspicuously absent.
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