Four Greek MEPs from the opposition PASOK party have submitted a written question to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas over Turkey's new marine parks.
Yannis Maniatis, Nikos Papandreou, Sakis Arnaoutoglou and Nikolas Farantouris filed the formal inquiry on Monday morning following Ankara's decision to declare two national marine parks in the Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean. The Turkish government published the two presidential decrees establishing the zones on August 16.
The Greek lawmakers warned that the unilateral designations violate international law and Greek sovereign rights, undermining maritime stability across the region.
Decrees near Greek islands
According to the written submission, the first presidential decree covers the maritime area between Fethiye and Kas on the south-western Turkish coast. The lawmakers noted that this park shuts off the entire marine area surrounding the Kastellorizo island complex.
The second decree establishes a marine park in the northern Aegean Sea between the Greek islands of Samothrace and Lemnos. Both areas extend beyond Turkish territorial waters into maritime zones where Greece holds sovereign rights.
The MEPs stressed that the declarations ignore the legal influence of Samothrace, Lemnos and the Kastellorizo complex under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. UNCLOS guarantees that islands generate their own territorial waters, continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone, a legal principle that forms part of the European Union acquis.
Blue Homeland doctrine
The four European representatives stated that the new marine parks are directly rooted in Turkey's Blue Homeland doctrine. The expansive maritime framework asserts Turkish rights across disputed waters in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean while rejecting the maritime entitlement of Greek islands.
The lawmakers pointed out that Ankara submitted maps detailing similar marine boundaries to UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission around the same time last year. They argued that the latest decrees represent a serious escalation that effectively cancels the recent calm waters policy aimed at reducing bilateral tensions between Athens and Ankara.
The policy of calm waters was established as a diplomatic framework to foster dialogue and maintain low tensions across the Aegean boundary between the two NATO allies.
Calls for European and national action
In their submission, the parliamentarians asked Kallas, who serves as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, what concrete measures she intends to take to provide practical support to Greece against Turkey's unilateral actions.
In a joint statement accompanying the question, the four MEPs declared that they were acting with a sense of responsibility to demand that European institutions take a clear stance. They also called on the Greek government to issue an institutional response to the strategic challenge.
The lawmakers emphasized that the decrees mark the practical implementation on the ground of the long-standing Blue Homeland narrative, about which they had previously issued early warnings. They added that no delay, inaction or downplaying of Ankara's latest move could be justified.
