Greece can use its veto over Turkey joining the EU’s SAFE defence fund to demand binding terms, researcher George Kalpadakis argued in an opinion article on Monday 19 October.
Kalpadakis is a senior researcher in foreign policy at the Academy of Athens. A veto can stop a formal agreement, he wrote, but it cannot by itself keep Turkish industry out of SAFE defence fund projects. As a result, Athens’ influence depends on the terms it attaches to its consent.
Greece has €787.7 million allocated under the SAFE defence fund, Kalpadakis noted. Athens has made Turkey’s participation conditional on Ankara lifting the casus belli it has maintained since 1995.
The first payment of €118.2 million reached Greece on 23 July, or 15 per cent of its allocation, the European Commission said. SAFE itself is a €150 billion loan instrument that mainly funds joint purchases of ammunition, missiles, air defence and ground combat systems made in the EU.
How the SAFE defence fund veto works
Under Articles 212 and 218(8) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, deals with candidate countries need unanimous Council approval. That gives Athens the power to withhold consent, Kalpadakis wrote.
However, Turkey can still reach SAFE defence fund projects by other routes, he noted. Parts from outside the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Ukraine may make up as much as 35 per cent of a final product’s estimated component cost. That needs no separate deal with Ankara.
A second, narrower channel exists under Article 16 of the SAFE regulation. Some third-country subcontractors may qualify if their contracts predate 29 May 2025. They may also qualify if the prime contractor commits to assess replacing them with an EU supplier within two years.
These exceptions do not make Turkish firms generally eligible, and Athens cannot change them on its own, according to the article.
Greek City Times reported on 5 October that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned Turkey that European defence money cannot come without conditions. In September, Athens ruled out a role for Ankara while the casus belli remains.
Canada deal as a model
Athens has so far tied its consent to political conditions, Kalpadakis wrote. The next step, he argued, is to demand enforceable terms on ownership, the origin of components and continuity of supply.
Article 16 already restricts third-country control of participating companies unless screening, guarantees or mitigation measures meet its conditions, he wrote. It also excludes parts from countries whose conduct conflicts with the security interests of the EU and its members.
Kalpadakis pointed to PESCO, the EU framework for joint defence projects, as a political precedent. Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/1639 requires third countries to respect good-neighbourly relations to take part. Although the SAFE defence fund has no equivalent rule, its security provisions give grounds for scrutiny, he argued.
More concretely, the EU-Canada agreement signed in February shows how access can be negotiated, he wrote. Canada may supply up to 80 per cent of a procurement. It pays a 15 per cent fee where European content falls below 65 per cent.
Those terms do not carry over to Turkey, so any requirements on Ankara would need separate negotiation. “Greece’s leverage lies in securing concessions that Ankara and its EU partners would otherwise have little reason to offer,” Kalpadakis wrote.
Source: eKathimerini
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