Why We Care About the East Mediterranean (And Why You Should Too)

Only in the past few weeks, you must have noticed on the news that there has been an increasing tension in the East  Mediterranean, with the Greeks and the Turks as protagonists. That is, if you have been lucky; because the media coverage has actually been too poor, considering what is at stake.

If you asked me -a Greek who was born in 1980s and lives in southeast Crete- when it started, I would probably tell you that it’s been always like this more or less. At least, that’s how I remember it and that’s how my parents remember it, although the situation began to feel a bit more serious after the 1996-1997 Imia crisis.

But, back in September 2016, when I returned home from my second Master’s, I noticed something unusual; aircraft that I couldn’t recognize would fly at extremely low altitudes almost every day. And when I say low, I mean the height of a two-story building. No matter how hard I searched and how many people I asked, I couldn’t find an answer. So, I opened the map, which showed me that Erdogan’s Turkey was after my area of residence too, apart from the other revisionist claims. As a result, I was not surprised at all this year when I heard about the memorandum between Libya and Turkey.

But why would a non-Greek or a non-Turkish should care? Because it is not just about Greece and Turkey. It is an issue that has many sides and includes more players.

The Arab Spring Impact

It started as an innocent expression of frustration and ended up as a mixture of proxy wars. Don’t take me wrong, I am a proponent of democracy and people’s right to free will. But the results in terms of democracy in the case of Arab Spring are still debatable and, in terms of security it has been a disaster. Humanity should have learned her lesson by now, as history has proven that uncontrollable events like this divide nations to a breaking point and harmfully expose them to the ambitions of domestic and international players. Now you’ll say, “don’t the Libyans have the right to choose their leader?”. Well, yes, but who will fix Libya now?

By now you already know that too many outside players are involved in the Arab Spring and, by taking sides or grabbing the opportunity to eradicate unwanted actors in each troubled country, they have shown that they have found a new ring for their power competition. The United States, Russia, France and China have all taken part in this dance in a complex pattern which includes bombings, political and military support, financial aid and economic sanctions.

A result of this situation is the pressure deriving from the millions of refugees, on top of the illegal migrants that cross the European borders every year. The people who dismiss the Greeks’ complaints rnaive enough to believe that those refugees and migrants aim at staying in Greece for the rest of their lives; most of them aim at settling down in the richer countries of the north. Greece, other Balkan states, and the more advanced states of the European south are considered transit countries both by the trafficking gangs and the people who are trafficked. So, these unfortunate people might spend some months or years in my country, but actually most of them aim at settling in more developed countries, maybe your country.

And in all this, Erdogan sees an opportunity to show that he has made Turkey a great power, despite the fact that it takes more than a large territory and a paranoid rhetoric for a state to be a great power. As a Greek, I really don’t mind what Erdogan thinks of himself and the country he governs and I don’t know any Greek who buys the image of the great, feared leader that he is trying so hard to portray. But as a Western and a Mediterranean, I do care about the fact that he does this in harmful ways; first, by invading northern Syria and opening fire against the Kurds, who have played a pivotal role in the fight against ISIS; and second, feeding the civil war in Libya by breaking the weapons’ embargo. With his behaviour, the situation in the affected states will never stabilize. This means that the Western families will keep receiving body bags with their loved ones who were deployed to the MENA region in the name of international security and didn’t make it home alive.

The Charms of Hydrocarbons

Despite the scientific proof of the contribution of mineral fuel to the climate change, the world is not making enough practical effort to abandon it. Even when there are honest intentions from the politicians’ part, powering a whole nation with renewable energy resources is not a realistic scenario for everybody yet if we consider the insufficient available technology and the cost that goes with it. So, the world will keep depending on hydrocarbons for the next few decades. But their quality and quantity are lower and lower, which makes them more and more valuable as a source of income and a geostrategic asset.

To tackle the problem of decreasing existing hydrocarbons resources, new technologies have been developed and they are expected to be used for the search and exploitation of new hydrocarbon blocks. In Greece alone, thirteen lots have been delivered already  to petroleum companies for exploration and exploitation and more will follow. Apart from the Hellenic Petroleum, large international hydrocarbon corporations are involved in the area, with proportions of up to sixty per cent.

Greek hydrocarbon lots that have been leased so far (Source: Hellenic Hydrocarbon Resources Management S.A.)

But to exploit hydrocarbons safely, one needs stability in the area and, in case of a full-out war between Greece and Turkey defending the areas of exploration and exploitation will not be just of Greece and Turkey’s business.

The “Neo-Ottomanism”

When Erdogan won his first presidential elections, I was just a teen, yet for a reason I cannot understand today I saw in him a man who had common sense and could do business with the international community, including my country. A series of trust-building efforts began with the encouragement and assistance of NATO and the EU. From 2004, Greece even ceased to be a denier to Turkey’s full EU membership, as there was a significant number of people who claimed that the “Europeanisation” of this country would help normalise its relations with Greece and Cyprus.

Nevertheless, Erdogan’s refusal to pay the full price of full EU accession (fixing his country’s democratic deficit, for example) which has led to this prospect to being a distant dream for the Turkish people, combined with the financial  recession in the country and authoritarian  rule inside his AKP party has led to a decrease of his domestic popularity, which is now even worse given the COVID-19 situation.

Given such circumstances, a new rise of nationalism combined with memories of glory from the distant past, only makes sense for a leader who wants to secure his position in power and his survival itself. This is a strategy that always works in the domestic sphere in times of crisis.

In 2016, the state-controlled media in Turkey began a propaganda that used “irrendentist chartography and rhetoric” which shows precisely Erdogan’s intention to expand Turkey’s borders at the expense of its neighbours. Turkish nationalists keep publicizing maps that show parts of Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Armenia, Ukraine, Egypt, Libya and many other sovereign states as parts of Turkey. You can find here one example. So, the East Mediterranean issue is not only about Greece and Turkey, it is about a big number of countries which either are targets by the Neo-Ottomanist propaganda or have placed large investments and military bases in the area.

Do I take such a rhetoric seriously? Personally, no; the era of empires has long passed, but it has many literate and illiterate proponents and ensures that a revisionist leader remains in power. And if this rhetoric is about Greece and Cyprus today, it might be about your country too later on.

So, that’s why it matters to care about the Eastern Mediterranean; it’s everyone’s business already.