Greece & the Goose with the Golden Eggs

By Angelos Kostopoulos* 

Greeks believe that they are situated on the best real estate on the planet. Today with the discovery of humungous quantities of oil [not from olives] in the Aegean and SE Mediterranean, this Greek “plot” may also be the most valuable in the world.

It should therefore not be a surprise that our NATO neighbor, Turkey, has been acting like the big bad wolf, threatening to take what Mr. Erdogan perceives is their share of the golden eggs from Greece’s goose!

The irony is that despite Greece’s economic recession, dysfunctional leftist government & public sector, demoralized military, and traditional propensity to screw-up even the best opportunities, it metaphorically always ends up with the Golden Goose.

Yes, the goose is firmly in the Greek hoop and under the protection of the US Naval fleet in Souda Bay, not to mention virtually the entire US military contingent that quietly transferred to Souda from Incirlik Air Base in the last few months.

Mr. Erdogan’s daily caustic threats to redraw Europe’s borders, to unleash thousands of refugees into Greece and Europe, to imprison Greek soldiers on a recent routine border patrol, to obstruct oil drilling activities in Cyprus, and to generally exacerbate regional tensions, is serious cause for western action.

Unfortunately, Mr. Erodgan doesn’t realize that this bullying is not in his country’s interests. Instead of questioning Greek and Cypriot sovereignties, which also are European Union borders, he should be promoting good neighbor policies that could possibly result in favorable trade agreements for the coming oil bonanza.

Instead of stirring the pot in Albania, Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Kosovo, Turkey would better benefit from a regional good neighbor policy that would give it political leverage in Turkey’s struggle to inhibit Kurdish irredentism.

Theories and wishful thinking aside, the United States and the European Union should take decisive actions, as they did in Poland to counter Russian threats, to ensure that Turkey respects the rule of law. The West’s response should make clear that Turkey’s NATO membership and EU accession is not written in stone, and that there are tangible consequences to Turkey’s blatant threats.

Mr. Erdogan should stop acting like a common “goose thief” and confirm rather than revise Turkey’s North Atlantic and European foreign policy.

*Angelos Kostopoulos is an associated in an Athenian law firm, and is a former US Army Foreign Area Officer.