How Greece arms itself thanks to France in an anti-Turkey function
Greece will purchase eighteen Rafales from the French Dassault group, four multi-mission frigates and four Romeo helicopters for the Navy, as well as making large investments in cybersecurity. The point of Giuseppe Gagliano
In order to contain and at the same time limit the projection of Turkish power on the Mediterranean, the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has announced that Greece intends to strengthen its military device.
Precisely in order to achieve this goal, Greece will purchase eighteen French Rafales , four multi-mission frigates and four Romeo helicopters for the Navy, as well as making huge investments in the war sector and cybersecurity.
In this way Macron has certainly achieved two objectives: on the one hand he made it clear that France does not intend to be marginalized by Turkey on the Mediterranean chessboard and on the other hand he has achieved, at least in the current state of negotiations with Greece, an excellent agreement of an economic nature for the French military industry.
Understandable both the reaction of the French Defense Minister, Florence Parly, who appropriately celebrated the success for the French aviation industry, in particular for Dassault Aviation, as well as for other French industrial players – and in particular for the numerous SMEs involved in the construction of the Rafale – and that of President Eric Trappier of Dassault Aviation who said that this agreement strengthens the exceptional relationship that France has had with Greece for almost half a century.
On the other hand, Turkey, by announcing naval exercises off the Cypriot coast, has not only ignored the repeated threats of sanctions from the European Union but has legitimized both the Greek and French reaction.
Specifically, Ankara will not only carry out its naval exercises off the village of Livera but will likely extend the energy explorations of its ship Oruc Reis until 25 September.
What lesson can we draw from this situation of constant instability in the Mediterranean?
If on the one hand the marginality of Italy appears increasingly evident, on the other hand it appears equally evident, as indeed the history of the military industry teaches, that both the situations of political tension and even more so that of real military conflicts have constituted – and still constitute – a very effective driving force for the military industry.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-la-grecia-si-arma-grazie-alla-francia-in-funzione-anti-turchia/ on Mon, 14 Sep 2020 05:00:01 +0000.