Mitsotakis: strong alliances, dialogue and legally binding agreements are Greece’s answer to revisionism, with Egypt as the example

Greece faces the revisionism of its neighbours relying on three tools: strong alliances, dialogue and legally binding agreements. That was the message Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis sent on Sunday, October 25, in his weekly review of government work.

His starting point was two developments in relations with Cairo that coincided within the same week. The first is the agreement on the Holy Monastery of St Catherine in Sinai, which the prime minister called “of historic significance”. The second is the new round of talks between Athens and Cairo to delimit also the section of the Exclusive Economic Zone that was left open, following the partial delimitation agreed in 2020. In Mitsotakis’ view, the two events together show how deep the trust between the two countries is.

What the Monastery agreement secures

Under an Egyptian guarantee, a special legally binding text protects the Monastery’s religious character and the monastic life of the brotherhood, while the places of worship remain in the exclusive use and possession of the monks. According to the prime minister, this resolves an institutional pending issue of 1,500 years. The Greek government, he said, supported the effort for the agreement in cooperation with Cairo, without harming the Monastery’s autonomy. See our report on the signing.

He thanked Archbishop Symeon of Sinai and the two competent ministries, Foreign Affairs and Education. He made special mention of the consent of the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Alexandria and the Archbishops of Cyprus and Athens, which he called “a strong message of unity and responsibility of the Greek Orthodox world”.

The diplomatic context

The reference to revisionism comes at a time of intense diplomatic activity. Athens has written to the UN Secretary-General about the Turkish-Libyan memorandum, as we reported. Cairo, meanwhile, has repeated publicly that it considers the memorandum void. The 2020 agreement delimited only part of the two countries’ maritime zones, and the new talks concern what was left open then.

The rest of the week

The review also covered domestic issues. The prime minister criticised PASOK for its stance on the age limit of 15 for social media. On arrests in the basketball match-fixing case and in the tax-evasion case involving a restaurant chain, he noted that “no arrest equals a conviction”, and stressed that the target is the “big fish”. He also referred to the inauguration of the national supercomputer “Daedalus” at Lavrio, a 10% rise in foreign visitor arrivals over eight months, and the celebration of Thessaloniki’s patron saint, St Demetrios. On Wednesday he will attend the October 28 parade.