Fuel drilling rights close to Crete spark regional tensions. Credit score: hlehnerer by way of Canva.com
It started within the south of Crete, that’s the place Greece has now redrawn a line. On June 17, 2025, Athens invited international firms to probe for fuel in its unique financial zone. The Libyan Unity authorities issued a rebuke that the water is theirs and never Greece’s. Behind each, nonetheless lurking within the shadows, is Turkey, whose 2019 Maritime operation first blurred this area’s borders. Greece’s methods contain drawing maps and testing the boundaries of sure claims in a area the place worldwide regulation and realpolitik hardly ever align.
This isn’t solely a Greek Libyan standoff, it’s a three-way energy triangle, and who will get to resolve the place the power future begins in Europe. It has turn into a battleground for pipelines, cables, drilling rights, and political affect, all whereas Europe claims to need to go inexperienced and sustainable. So, how did we get right here? Why are oil ambitions nonetheless fueling new clashes? And why does this unusual triangle between Crete, Tripoli, and Ankara inform us about the actual energy battle unfolding within the waves? Let’s break it down.
What Libya and why it triggered Greece
On June thirteenth 2025, the Olympia Nationwide Oil Company opened a bidding for a brand new offshore oil and fuel exploration block which overlaps the maritime zones Greece already claims simply south of Crete.
- Athens was fast to reply, and by June 17, 2025, Greece’s Minister of Setting and Power invited firms to discover that very same space.
- Libya disagrees and in a press release to Tripoli’s authorities accused Greece of violating its Sovereign rights, calling the act a provocation and ignoring the correct negotiation channels.
- They demanded that Greece halt that course of and return to the desk to debate the maritime boundaries.
Greece insists that every part was accomplished in accordance with worldwide regulation, to which Libya is a signatory. It is a reassertion of authorized management over waters, and it’s seen as unquestionably Greek.
That is extra of a chessboard one, the place power diplomacy and many years of alliances are all converging inside.
Greece’s authorized counterpoint
This space lies throughout the Unique Financial Zone, and Athens believes it’s backed by Worldwide regulation, which provides the nations the precise to discover and use maritime assets inside 200 nautical miles of their shoreline.
The fascinating facet in all that is that Libya isn’t a signatory, so whereas Greece is quoting the regulation, Tripoli is taking part in a distinct playbook.
From Greece’s standpoint, it is a authorized and commercially drawn tender. Athens is planting a flag with out sending any ships or sparking a standoff; it’s a paper rush, not a army one.
It’s additionally no coincidence that Greece moved the pinnacle of schedule saying all its licensing round simply 4 days after Libya. The velocity is a sign that Athens is utilizing a defensive strike on the map.
Greece’s long-standing stance on power exploration with out coordination is that it’d destabilise the area. This brings us to the elephant within the room: behind Greece’s Libyan flashpoint is a 3rd participant with a protracted reminiscence and a map of its personal as effectively.
The Turkish angle
We will’t have a dialogue about Greece and Libya’s Maritime conflict with out mentioning Turkey. Again in 2019, the Unity governments of Ankara and Libya signed a maritime settlement that drew a daring new boundary throughout the Mediterranean, one which minimize by way of waters Greece considers its personal, and which ignored islands like Crete within the course of.
- Greece was outraged, so was the EU, however the deal was struck, and it gave Turkey a foot in Libya’s power technique that has not gone away.
- It has turn into related once more because the areas auctioning in the present day resemble what was throughout the Turkey-Libya deal.
- Greece is reacting to a transfer that seems to be a revival of Turkey’s earlier technique; this time, they’re sporting Libyan colors.
In actual fact, simply days earlier than this flare-up, Turkey submitted the brand new Maritime map to UNESCO that challenges the zoning within the Aegean: completely different sea, identical story overlapping claims contested boundaries and the authorized frameworks that don’t match.
It’s a high-stakes triangle: Crete to the north, Tripoli to the South, and Ankara to the East. The true battle is just not oil or fuel in any respect; it’s over who will outline the map for it. Greece is defending its place on a number of fronts concurrently.
A united Europe
International locations like Spain, Italy, and Malta even have their very own stakes within the Mediterranean power; some depend on Libyan cooperation, whereas others are signing offers with North African power companies. On this chessboard, supporting Greece is dangerous for future contracts or inflaming dormant maritime disputes.
Greece understands this, and that’s why it’s appearing extra rapidly on sure issues earlier than hesitation turns into an EU distance. As that solidarity wavers, the Jap Mediterranean is more and more wanting like a free-for-all as a result of whoever strikes first, that’s the actual fact, and whoever makes the primary transfer attracts the map.
It is a combat for recognition in a union that’s distracted, divided, and slowly recalibrating its priorities away from the seas and in direction of its personal unsure centre.