Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias told a Brussels security forum on Tuesday that Turkey poses a direct threat to Gree...

Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias told a Brussels security forum on Tuesday that Turkey poses a direct threat to Greece and that Europe's defense capabilities fall dangerously short of what is needed. Speaking at the "Connecting Europe Days" conference in Brussels, Dendias was blunt when asked whether Europe has reached the right level of infrastructure defense: "No, we are not where we should be. On the contrary, we are far from it." Dendias named Turkey first among the threats Greece faces, saying it is "a neighbor with whom coexistence is very difficult." He then widened the picture to include Iran, Libya, the Sahel, Syria, and Lebanon, describing Europe's broader neighborhood as "an extremely difficult one." The minister presented Greece's "Achilles Shield" defense plan, a five-layer system covering land, sea, air, cyberspace, and space, and proposed that Greece serve as a model for developing European defense capabilities given its complex security environment. Dendias argued that Europe spent decades assuming NATO, and in practice the United States, would handle its defense. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was, in his words, a "wake-up call," but he warned that Europe has been too slow to act. "The challenges of tomorrow are incomprehensible," he said. He also stressed that boosting spending alone is not enough. If European infrastructure cannot move troops and equipment quickly in a crisis, money spent on weapons counts for little. He compared the challenge to the Roman Empire, noting that Roman legions moved fast because they had the roads to do it. The EU has a nearly 20 trillion euro economy, he said, but still lacks the transport infrastructure to support rapid military movement. Dendias was clear that a stronger European defense dimension should complement NATO, not compete with it. He ended his remarks with a direct message: "We are doing the right thing. We are late, so we must move very fast." #Greece #Turkey #EuropeanDefense