A new European Parliamentary Research Service report shows that EU Member States collectively raised their defense spending from €218 billion in 2021 to €326 billion in 2024 — a 30% increase in real terms. But Greece, long accustomed to maintaining high defense outlays, stands out not just for meeting the 2% benchmark, but for consistently exceeding it — even during the depths of its financial crisis.
This development raises both opportunities and concerns about whether Greece can secure a meaningful share of the funds and rebuild its defence sector.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday described the Greek Armed Forces as undergoing “the most daring transformation since the founding of the modern Greek state,” during an event marking the integration of the V-BAT unmanned aircraft system into the Supreme Military Command of the Interior and Islands (ASDEN).
At the heart of the agreement is “BlueWhale,” a state-of-the-art autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) developed by Israel. Designed for various high-risk maritime missions, the unmanned system is capable of covert operations, including intelligence gathering, submarine and underwater target detection, acoustic surveillance, and minefield mapping on the seabed.
Addressing the ceremony, Dendias stressed that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) applies equally to all islands, regardless of size. He cited the 2020 Greece-Egypt maritime agreement, which he helped broker, as the foundation for Greece’s EEZ in the region.
Ukraine is increasingly desperate to get more Patriots, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy telling CBS news last month his government was ready to buy 10 of the US-made air defense systems that are vital for shooting down Russian ballistic missiles.
