JOURNALIST: As we said we would, we have the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Giorgos Katrougalos, on the line. And he is also Syriza’s candidate for MP in the Northern District of Athens, the former 2nd District, in the 7 July elections. Mr. Minister, good morning.
G. KATROUGALOS: Good morning to you both and to your listeners.
JOURNALIST: The news often leads us to our questions. Today we have the Summit Meeting. What do we expect with regard to Turkey’s provocations? Where is the bar set, and what do we hope to get from this resolution and the announcement?
G. KATROUGALOS: As you know, the European Council receives the draft conclusions prepared by the General Affairs Council.
JOURNALIST: The day before yesterday.
G. KATROUGALOS: Yes, the day before yesterday. It is a very advanced draft that, for the first time, includes measures against Turkey, if Turkey continues its illegal activities, and it mandates the Commission and the European External Action Service – which is essentially the European Union’s “Ministry of Foreign Affairs” – to move ahead to the necessary measures.
JOURNALIST: Mogherini, in other words?
G. KATROUGALOS: Mogherini.
JOURNALIST: What are the necessary measures? Do we specify them?
G. KATROUGALOS: They aren't specified now, precisely because there is a need for flexibility. They could range from simple economic measures, like freezing pre-accession funding, to more serious things that concern the Customs Union process, all of the outstanding issues Turkey has with the European Union. And something else that’s important: beyond the measures themselves, which will sting, the whole matter of announcing measures against Turkey is indirectly hurting the Turkish economy at a time when it is particularly vulnerable. Following the General Affairs Council announcement and the response from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs ...
JOURNALIST: The lira took a dive.
G. KATROUGALOS: Exactly. 1.5%, on top of the 30% it has already lost. And the fact that the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the decision toed the Greek line and makes the European Union hostage to Cyprus and Greece shows that the climate has reversed.
JOURNALIST: Are these measures enough to stop Turkey’s provocations in Cyprus and the Aegean.
G. KATROUGALOS: If you mean whether the provocations will stop or continue, the answer is that Turkey’s tactic is to increase tensions, but from here on I think Turkey, too, will see that it loses, rather than gains, by ramping up the tension.
JOURNALIST: But that’s our estimation of things.
G. KATROUGALOS: No, it isn’t.
JOURNALIST: It is. Because Erdogan is weighing the provocations and the claims in the Cypriot EEZ – and not, I assume, in the Greek EEZ, but it’s not out of the question – against the economic sanctions the European Union is going to impose. From what we see, the scale is probably leaning towards the provocations and claims, and leaving aside the cost of the measures you are describing. How do we deal with this?
G. KATROUGALOS: I’ll tell you. What is he trying to do?
JOURNALIST: In the long term, he is trying to get at the natural wealth of the Aegean and the southeastern Mediterranean.
G. KATROUGALOS: Exactly. And how is he trying to do this?
JOURNALIST: But if the economy collapses ...
JOURNALIST: Yes, but let’s hear it from the Minister.
G. KATROUGALOS: Not before I say this. I have an observation to make, one step before this. Through this revisionist policy, Turkey is trying to create various grey areas in terms of international law, whether in the Aegean, rocky islets, or, in the eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus, regarding Cyprus’s right to extract the resources that belong to it based on its sovereign rights. For this approach to get results, an international dispute has to be created. In other words, someone has to accept Turkey’s claim that what it is doing has some basis in international law. When the whole of the international community – not just the European Union, but the United States as well – is condemning these actions as illegal and provocative, even if it continues, it won’t gain anything. It will lose. That was the initial core of my argument.
JOURNALIST: In other words, you’re saying Turkey can’t create accomplished facts?
G. KATROUGALOS: Not only is it unable to create accomplished facts, but in trying to sustain the tension, it is not only failing to create accomplished facts, but also increasing its isolation. That’s why the view I have stated, and I think the county’s other political forces agree, is that perpetuating this tension is a sign of weakness, not power.
JOURNALIST: Mr. Katrougalos, I accept that these are signs of weakness – the Prime Minister said it and I noted it in an interview he gave a couple of days ago, you say it, and other political forces are saying it.
G. KATROUGALOS: It would hurt their image to abandon the escalation of tensions, but they have realised it is costing them.
JOURNALIST: But, Mr. Katrougalos, does this ensure that they won’t send the “Yavuz” to drill in the Greek EEZ tomorrow, east of Kastelorizo? What will we say? Will we say Turkey is weak and ignore its presence there?
G. KATROUGALOS: Just a minute. Let’s make a distinction. What is the key difference between the violations of international legality in the Aegean and in Cyprus?
JOURNALIST: But in northern Cyprus they’ve made international legality war and occupation. The Turks respect nothing.
G. KATROUGALOS: Listen, it was a rhetorical question. In terms of international law there is no difference. But there is a major difference in that we have a Navy and we have sent the necessary messages everywhere that no one should even think about coming into our waters. And I assure you that these messages have been received, because no one is crazy or reckless enough to want to create a heated incident in the Aegean.
JOURNALIST: So you’re saying they wouldn’t dare try this in Kastelorizo.
G. KATROUGALOS: I’m saying we’ve sent the necessary messages so that they shouldn’t even think about it.
JOURNALIST: That’s very serious.
JOURNALIST: It’s extremely serious. I think it is a qualitative change and difference from how we have dealt with the Turks’ provocations until now.
G. KATROUGALOS: No, this has always been our position.
JOURNALIST: Okay, you have to admit, Mr. Katrougalos, that you were very relaxed. You yourself said that “the Turks have rights in the Aegean,” and the Prime Minister said “there are no borders in the sea.”
G. KATROUGALOS: No, no. Because you’re accusing us simultaneously – I don’t mean you, I mean New Democracy’s political rhetoric – of two completely opposite things. First, of glossing and appeasement, and then of overreacting. This was always our position. Does Turkey have rights? It has the rights given to it by international law. That is our firm policy, and this has to be said. It doesn’t have the rights though, it looks to impose with its power. On the other hand, what I said is the source, the core of our long-standing and firm national policy: that our policy is founded on international law, and the only Turkish rights we recognise are those recognised by international law. That has to be said. We can’t say Turkey has no rights. That’s an absurd position.
JOURNALIST: What is our only dispute? The continental shelf. Is there anything else?
G. KATROUGALOS: The continental shelf, and there is an obvious connection between the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone, which has to be delimited.
JOURNALIST: But the exclusive economic zone can be delimited unilaterally.
JOURNALIST: And in any case, we can’t possible accept the maps the Turks are putting forward.
G. KATROUGALOS: According to the Law of the Sea, it has to be delimited through an agreement between the bordering states, and this is why no Greek government has ever sent unilateral coordinates. Because not even New Democracy is asking for that. It was tabled during the Samaras government and rejected. Why was it rejected? If you give unilateral coordinates, the other side will also give unilateral coordinates, which will overlap yours, and so you have suddenly managed to create a grey area, which is Turkey’s strategy exactly.
JOURNALIST: What you're saying is right. I want to ask something else about Cyprus and the developments there. Until now, the impression we all had was that the agreement with the United States and Israel safeguards the Cypriot EEZ. In practice, this proved insufficient.
G. KATROUGALOS: No. Again, I disagree with your phrasing.
JOURNALIST: Why?
G. KATROUGALOS: Where have we delimited the Cypriot EEZ? In the southern area, exactly where we have the offshore concessions. In the northern part, precisely because the delimitation has to be done with Turkey, which doesn’t recognise the Republic of Cyprus ...
JOURNALIST: But if I remember correctly, the drillship “Porthitis” is to the west, between the Greek and Cypriot EEZs.
G. KATROUGALOS: It has gone into part where Cyprus hasn’t delimited with a bordering state.
JOURNALIST: But isn’t that where Ankara’s basic claim is, Minister?
G. KATROUGALOS: No. Ankara is putting forward an absurd claim, that islands don’t have a continental shelf or exclusive economic zone, so that its EEZ essentially extends to the EEZs of Libya and Egypt. Ankara’s claims are completely out of touch with international law. What we secured, through systematic diplomatic preparation – Greece and Cyprus – is, on the one hand, for Cyprus to have moved ahead with the delimitation with Israel and with Egypt, so that it could then move ahead, as it did, with granting block concessions, and, on the other hand, through the diplomatic alliances we have, for us to be able to defend these blocks. So this is an achievement that shouldn’t be questioned.
JOURNALIST: And there is no way we would ever accept that the Turkish EEZ extends between the Greek and Cypriot EEZs. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Minister?
G. KATROUGALOS: Our positions are firm and longstanding, and they derive from the Law of the Sea.
JOURNALIST: Are you concerned by the fact that Albania is literally in flames today? We have extensive rioting.
G. KATROUGALOS: We are very concerned, and especially with regard to the protection of our minority’s rights. And this is why it is also a positive development – despite being overshadowed by Turkish provocations – that for the first time in a text of Council Conclusions there is express reference to the need to protect the minority’s property rights and right to self-determination.
JOURNALIST: What do you think about the fact that the launching of Skopje’s accession process is being put off until at least the fall?
G. KATROUGALOS: North Macedonia, not Skopje.
JOURNALIST: Yes, North Macedonia’s.
G. KATROUGALOS: We would have preferred a more immediate discussion, precisely because the European Union’s credibility is on the line.
JOURNALIST: Germany raised an issue. That’s why. Because its parliament ...
G. KATROUGALOS: There are various objections. There is one that says: how can be move ahead with enlargement when we are divided on so many important issues? In other words, this view says that first we deepen political integration, then we enlarge.
JOURNALIST: But there’s an obvious contradiction here, isn’t there, Mr. Minister? They got us to sign the agreement post-haste, under conditions you know ...
G. KATROUGALOS: They didn't get us to do it.
JOURNALIST: How’s that? At the time we were talking about the pressure being exerted by the Europeans and Ms. Merkel.
G. KATROUGALOS: No, we never said anything like that. The problem is elsewhere. No one pressured us into resolving a dispute. It was in our interest to resolve a decades-old dispute.
JOURNALIST: The basic pretext of those who were pressuring us then was to stabilize the Western Balkans and get them into the European Union.
G. KATROUGALOS: There really is a contradiction there, but not in the way you put it. That dispute should have been resolved in the 1990s. It doesn’t have the depth or conflict of interests that our disputes with Turkey have. So it wasn’t in our interest to perpetuate such a dispute. On the other hand, you’re saying that the message – not to us, but to the other side – was “settle the matter,” “put your neighbourly relations in order and carry out the reforms and you will have a place in Europe.” And North Macedonia really did try, at a greater internal cost than ours, because they changed their constitution. And in spite of that, now the date has been moved back. They got a starting date – let’s give the decision its due. The accession negotiations will start in October, but one might have expected Europe to be more generous.
JOURNALIST: I asked this question: If the Greek government changes on 7 July, and New Democracy, which is against the Agreement, can, like the German Parliament, raise the issue in the Hellenic Parliament – keeping North Macedonia out of the European Union – because New Democracy said it would block the agreement. Can it do that?
G. KATROUGALOS: Listen, what the Conclusions confirm is what we always supported in Parliament: that the Prespa Agreement provides additional guarantees to ensure its implementation, precisely because North Macedonia’s European perspective is now linked to faithful implementation of the agreement.
JOURNALIST: Yes, if New Democracy wants to be faithful to its view.
G. KATROUGALOS: I talked to Mr. Koumoutsakos. Although there are voices, such as Mr. Samaras and Mr. Georgiadis, that say pretty much what you’re saying, that we will reopen the Agreement, New Democracy’s official line, as stated somewhat elliptically – so as not to annoy these voices in his party – by Mr. Mitsotakis, but with greater clarity and detail by the foreign affairs shadow minister, Mr. Koumoutsakos, is that, although New Democracy disagreed, given that the agreement has already been ratified, and because Greece is not a revisionist state, they will apply it to the letter, trying, of course, to ensure that the implementation of the Agreement benefits our country. That is the position he stated in my presence.
June 20, 2019