OPINION — In a world the place world energy is now not solely fought over via use of army 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 Overseas 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 position in late June, Theoharis was clear: Financial diplomacy is now 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 creating innovation economic system, and its world partnerships right into a single related, cohesive, forward-looking overseas coverage message.
Previously, protection and diplomacy have run parallel programs in Greece. With this new Deputy Overseas 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 immediately) 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 Overseas Minister Theoharis has deliberately linked protection procurement with export promotion and industrial cooperation. Exhibitions like DEFEA (Protection Exhibition Athens) are usually not simply army exhibitions anymore; they’re statecraft instruments, welcoming generals but in addition traders, tech startups, and overseas ministers. The message is unambiguous: Greece shouldn’t be solely defending its borders anymore. It sells its capabilities, innovation, and reliability.
Beneath this new method, Greek financial diplomacy additionally goes hi-tech. In collaboration with the Ministry of Protection, Greece’s Hellenic Heart for Protection Innovation (HCDI) has established itself as a magnet for worldwide traders 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 associate in NATO and EU innovation ecosystems.
Initiatives resembling joint symposia with France and rising cooperation with India and Armenia are usually not simply symbolic. They’re pitches for funding. Protection is the icebreaker; financial cooperation is the primary course.
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One of the vital 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 heart, 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 army training, simulation expertise, and logistical assist are usually not protection agreements—these are medium- and long-term undertakings that deliver collectively state safety with institutional belief and financial interplay.
By linking army coaching programs with financial diplomacy missions, Greece has rewritten its narrative: now not a shopper 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 Overseas Minister Theoharis can be in his capacity to marry imaginative and prescient with operational accuracy. His ministry has launched such devices as myOEY.reside.gov.gr to hurry up export licensing and investor involvement, opening Greece to overseas companions. Now he should additionally assist to strengthen the Overseas Direct Funding Screening Mechanism to maintain Greece open – however not susceptible – to overseas capital in strategic sectors like power, infrastructure, and protection expertise.
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This emphasis on transparency, governance, and digital effectivity shouldn’t be bureaucratic, it is strategic. It is a sign to potential companions and traders: 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 army workouts 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 special story is being written: certainly one of confidence, competence, and planning and the Hellenic Ministry of Overseas Affairs takes a entrance seat to that. The portfolio of the Deputy Overseas Minister for Financial Diplomacy and Extroversion is paramount to the profitable integration of those areas.
The brand new Deputy Overseas Minister is already displaying {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 when it comes to spending as a proportion of GDP), innovation potential, and overseas funding technique, Greece can rise as a significant, multidimensional world participant.
Greece should not take a look at overseas coverage, protection, and financial planning in isolation and as an alternative present the world that it doesn’t simply react to the world’s challenges, however provides 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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