Greece has become Europe’s ‘bete noire’

Press, 4 March 1982, Page 16

Greece has become Europe’s ‘bete noire’

By

RALPH JOSEPH

in Athens

When the socialist Prime Minister of Greece, Mr Andreas Papandreou, returned home from a meeting of N.A.T.O. defence ministers in Brussels in early December, he was given a hero’s welcome at Athens airport by a crowd waving the blue and white flag of the Greek Republic and the green flag of PASOK, the PanHellenic Socialist Union which Mr Papandreou heads. Mr Papandreou had done no more in Brussels than set out his demands from the alliance. He had also prevented a final communique being issued (for the first time in the alliance’s 32-year history) by asking for the inclusion of a clause that Turkey, another N.A.T.O. member,' could not accept.

Mr Papandreou did not, reportedly, tell the other 14 N.A.T.O. defence ministers that Greece would pull out of N.A.T.O.’s military wing if the demands were not met, though he has said so dozens of times in public statements at home. Observers could not escape the impression that the Greek Prime Minister may have been merely playing to the galleries at home, and was not in fact seriously contemplating a pullout from N.A.T.O.’s military wing. The way his party played up his role in “telling off” the N.A.T.O. allies seemed to confirm these suspicions. In any event, as some observers have

pointed out, Mr Papandreou probably realises as well as anyone else that Turkey would benefit more than Greece if he were to go ahead to make his threat a reality. Ironically, the reason why Mr Papandreou is asking for better terms from N.A.T.O. is to put Greece in a better position against Turkey, principally. What Mr Papandreou wants, first, is a renegotiation of the terms under which Greece reentered N.A.T.O.’s military wing in September, 1980, after remaining out for six years. The first time Greece pulled out, in 1974, was to protest against the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the fact that N.A.T.O. had found it possible to co-operate with the colonels’ junta (1967-74) without pressuring them to restore democracy in Greece.

But while Mr Papandreou may have realised that Greece cannot play the same card twice (after coming out losers the last time), he has proved that for the time being he can play the role of the “bete noire” of the Western alliance while searching for another card to play.

He certainly has been looking for it in unexpected quarters. About mid-January,’ the Greeks leaked the news that they had decided to allow Soviet military vessels to stop for servicing at the strategi-

cally located island of Syros in the Aegean Sea. Athens does not consider this to be incompatible with its N.A.T.O. membership, though the United States had pointed out before Greece rejoined N.A.T.O.’s military wing in 1980 that the agreement to service the Soviet ships, first signed in 1979, would be “without precedent” within the alliance. The deal was terminated “under political pressure,” as the Greeks are now saying, when Athens re-entered the alliance.

The “bete noire” role also emerged when Mr Papandreou dissociated himself from an E.E.C. declaration condemning the military takeover in Poland. The unfortunate Greek undersecretary, Mr Asimakis Fotilas, (an old friend of Mr Papandreou, in fact) found himself without a job for having treated a trifle too lightly the Prime Minister’s instructions on the issue by putting his signature on the declaration. Again, the manner in which the issue was treated in Greece, (Mr Fotilas’s dismissal was announced on Athens television at midnight, before he himself was told about it), showed that Mr Papandreou was indeed playing to the galleries at home. The dismissal was unprecedented in Greece.

Actions of this sort seem to be merely a foretaste of what Mr Papandreou can do to disrupt the smooth workings of the alliance if his terms are not met.

High on the list of Mr Papandreou’s demands is that the “Rogers Plan” for the control of Aegean air space should be reviewed to return control to Greece. The Rogers Plan is named after Gen. Bernard Rogers, N.A.T.O.’s Supreme Commander in Europe, who drew it up a little over a year ago allowing for the air space to be controlled jointly by Greece and Turkey. This cut deeply into Greek pride because it seemed to surrender something to a traditional enemy, Turkey.

Mr Papandreou is also demanding complete control over the Greek armed forces in times of peace, with control through an integrated N.A.T.O. command coming only in times of war. To Mr Josef Luns, the Secretary General of N.A.T.0., it seems that Greece “wants to have its cake and eat it.” A point Mr Luns may have missed is Mr Papandreou’s intense wariness of the Greek armed forces, and of N.A.T.O.’s influence over them. The trauma of the colonels’ coup in 1967 is never far from Greek minds today, perhaps because the generals are believed to be deeply Right-wing in their outlook and it is not always quite certain how they are going to react to Left-wing military policies.

If Mr Papandreou has taken the precaution of keeping the defence portfolio to himself, bringing him always in direct contact with the generals so that he can feel their mood

better, he may not find it quite convenient to be looking over his shoulders at them if the N.A.T.O. command structure is continually coming in his way. What outside (N.A.T.0.) influences can do to corrupt the generals into attempting a replay of the 1967 events is another matter.

Another factor bothering the Greek socialists is the events in the Gulf of Sidra, off Libya, in August last year, just before the Greek national elections. American F-14 Tomcats taking part in a United States naval

exercise knocked two of Libya’s Soviet-made SU-22 fighter-bombers out of the sky. Reports are that the American aircraft carriers made use of N.A.T.O. facilities in the Greek island of Crete before the manoeuvres began.

If Greece’s position in N.A.T.O. is not renegotiated to prevent history repeating itself, it could undermine Mr Papandreou’s efforts to build his bridges to the radical Arab states on the other side of the Mediterranean.