The Great Sea Interconnector is still the dominant security story. The French-flagged Abeille Marengo is surveying in international waters, within the Greek continental shelf and under Greek permits, and a Turkish frigate, TCG Gokova, radioed it to relay Ankara’s Navtex demand for “consent”. The Greek frigate Limnos responded immediately, and the survey continues under the Greek Navtex.
Cyprus issued a counter-Navtex saying the Turkish warning had not been coordinated with its authorities. Athens has decided that its naval or coast guard presence will match whatever Turkey deploys, frigate for frigate. Surveys are expected to run to the end of March, with construction of the roughly 900-kilometre cable due for completion in 2027. Foreign Minister Gerapetritis will brief party leaders on Saturday, and the episode has reopened domestic debate on how to handle Ankara.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s bid to put Feridun Sinirlioglu at the head of the UN is drawing organised opposition. The Hellenic American Leadership Council is urging Rubio and Ambassador Waltz to reject the candidacy, including by veto if necessary, citing Turkey’s defiance of Security Council resolutions on Cyprus and Sinirlioglu’s answers at his 6 November General Assembly hearing. Gerapetritis has already said Athens will not support him.
Elsewhere, Mitsotakis told the European Political Community summit in Dublin that Europe must be directly represented in any Ukraine settlement, and called for a Black Sea ceasefire and an end to attacks on merchant shipping. French Trade Minister Forissier visited Athens to explore sourcing refined products from Greece. Dendias launched the Space Operations Command, aiming for Greek-owned satellite intelligence and building on 16 optical satellites already acquired, with six more planned. At COP31 in Antalya, Minister Papastavrou reaffirmed the target of protecting 35% of Greek marine waters by 2027 through the two national marine parks.
Migration pressure continues. More than 1,600 people are in Crete facilities while residents resist a new reception centre near Heraklion, which Minister Plevris says could open within days. He has raised the possibility of suspending asylum applications if Libya is judged to be using flows as a tool. Greece, Austria, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands meet in Vienna on 16 November on an African return hub, with Rwanda the leading candidate and Uganda also considered. Arrivals from Turkey to the eastern Aegean are down to about 3,000 this year from 8,000.
Domestically, Mitsotakis said that when his career as prime minister ends, so will his parliamentary career, a break with the custom of former leaders staying on as MPs. He repeated that he is aiming for an outright majority, ruled out cooperation with parties to ND’s right, and said ELAS is excluded while PASOK has ruled itself out. He argued that by 2030 it will be determined whether Greece is among the winners or the losers.
A minor reshuffle followed the resignation of deputy development minister Tsavdaridis over allegations that his daughter benefited from fictitious sporting success to win a university place. Spanakis moves across, Liakos becomes deputy interior minister, and Vartzopoulos returns as deputy health minister for mental health after the OPEKEPE case against him was closed. ELAS, with momentum stalling in polls, is softening its stance on former SYRIZA and New Left figures, welcoming those with a “positive imprint”, though Alexis Charitsis remains an independent MP and parts of the remaining left reject Tsipras’s perceived rightward turn. A newspaper piece by Evangelos Venizelos praising Mitsotakis’s UN speech sparked a spat between ND and PASOK, each claiming him and each uneasy about his independence.
On the economy, the household data was sobering. The ECB finds wealth inequality in Greece remains well above crisis-era levels, unlike most of the eurozone, driven by the collapse in property values, depleted savings and falling homeownership among the young. Eurostat’s figure that 50.5% of Greeks cannot cover unexpected expenses, against an EU average of 29.2%, is cited in support. More than half of taxpayers declare under €10,000, and over 4.7 million people report zero or under €10,000 in taxable income, even as total declared income rose 9.3% to a record €115.93 billion. At the other end, Sotheby’s finds 53% of international affluent respondents expect Greek property prices to rise, with 33% planning a purchase within a year and 56% paying entirely in cash.
Tax and investment developments were significant. The Council of State, in Decision 1246/2026, ended open-ended extensions of limitation periods, applying a five-year rule to all tax years, with a ten-year exception only where information could not be known, such as foreign accounts. AADE has told audit services not to issue assessments or fines on pending 2012-2017 evasion cases.
Furthermore, Greece committed €120 million to the EIB Group’s European Tech Champions fund-of-funds, alongside Bulgaria, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain, while the data centre association sees up to €10 billion of potential investment, with roughly 30 MW operating and about 200 MW of announced expansion, though per-capita consumption remains a fraction of Spain’s, Italy’s or Germany’s.
In other news, a POESY and INE/GSEE study found the media sector increasingly concentrated, with one in five insured journalists retired, falling real purchasing power and persistent gender inequality.
Meteo forecasts a warmer December, with 82% of 400 scenarios above average.
Taken together, this week shows Greece asserting its position at sea with a visible, deliberately matched naval posture, while the prime minister sets an unusually personal wager on an outright majority, against a backdrop of household finances and wealth distribution that remain far weaker than headline growth suggests.