Cyprus and Eastern Mediterranean in Greek Political Parties’ Discourse During The 2010s

Abstract

After 2010, new security concerns in Greek foreign policy arose as a result of escalating tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean as a subregion. Existing security concerns are amplified by new challenges that Greek domestic political actors see as difficult. Although security concerns, threats, risks, and interests are the result of governmental decision-making and domestic politics, the ongoing impact of previous issues must be revisited to understand how the new issues are interpreted. The Cyprus question has increased pressure on the thoughts of the primary decision-makers in Greek foreign policy, the prime ministers and foreign ministers. In this framework of decision-making processes, emerging new issues in the Eastern Mediterranean are seen as linked to the Cyprus question and other Greek-Turkish disputes. The purpose of this article is to assess the relationship between Greece's political leadership and the settled national foreign and security policy concerns in the Eastern Mediterranean surrounding the Cyprus issue in the 2010s. In this framework, the key political leaders' and parties' public speeches and preferred policies in the 2010s were examined to present the relationship between Greek domestic and foreign policies, as well as the impact of leadership, particularly in decisions about Greek-Turkish relations in Eastern Mediterranean and the Cyprus question.