Gas drilling rights near Crete spark regional tensions. Credit: hlehnerer via Canva.com
It began in the south of Crete, that’s where Greece has now redrawn a line. On June 17, 2025, Athens invited foreign companies to explore for gas in its exclusive economic zone. The Libyan Unity government issued a rebuke that the water is theirs and not Greece’s. Behind both, still lurking in the shadows, is Turkey, whose 2019 Maritime operation first blurred this region’s borders. Greece’s strategies involve drawing maps and testing the boundaries of certain claims in a region where international law and realpolitik rarely align.
This is not only a Greek Libyan standoff, it’s a three-way power triangle, and who gets to decide where the energy future begins in Europe. It has become a battleground for pipelines, cables, drilling rights, and political influence, all while Europe claims to want to go green and sustainable. So, how did we get here? Why are oil ambitions still fueling new clashes? And why does this strange triangle between Crete, Tripoli, and Ankara tell us about the real power struggle unfolding in the waves? Let’s break it down.
What Libya and why it triggered Greece
On June 13th 2025, the Olympia National Oil Corporation opened a bidding for a new offshore oil and gas exploration block which overlaps the maritime zones Greece already claims just south of Crete.
- Athens was quick to respond, and by June 17, 2025, Greece’s Minister of Environment and Energy invited companies to explore that exact same area.
- Libya disagrees and in a statement to Tripoli’s government accused Greece of violating its Sovereign rights, calling the act a provocation and ignoring the proper negotiation channels.
- They demanded that Greece halt that process and return to the table to discuss the maritime boundaries.
Greece insists that everything was done in accordance with international law, to which Libya is a signatory. This is a reassertion of legal control over waters, and it is seen as unquestionably Greek.
This is more of a chessboard one, where energy diplomacy and decades of alliances are all converging within.
Greece’s legal counterpoint
This area lies within the Exclusive Economic Zone, and Athens believes it’s backed by International law, which gives the countries the right to explore and use maritime resources within 200 nautical miles of their coastline.
The interesting aspect in all this is that Libya isn’t a signatory, so while Greece is quoting the law, Tripoli is playing a different playbook.
From Greece’s standpoint, this is a legal and commercially drawn tender. Athens is planting a flag without sending any ships or sparking a standoff; it’s a paper rush, not a military one.
It’s also no coincidence that Greece moved the head of schedule announcing all its licensing around just four days after Libya. The speed is an indication that Athens is using a defensive strike on the map.
Greece’s long-standing stance on energy exploration without coordination is that it might destabilise the region. This brings us to the elephant in the room: behind Greece’s Libyan flashpoint is a third player with a long memory and a map of its own as well.
The Turkish angle
We can’t have a discussion about Greece and Libya’s Maritime clash without mentioning Turkey. Back in 2019, the Unity governments of Ankara and Libya signed a maritime agreement that drew a bold new boundary across the Mediterranean, one that cut through waters Greece considers its own, and which ignored islands like Crete in the process.
- Greece was outraged, so was the EU, but the deal was struck, and it gave Turkey a foot in Libya’s energy strategy that has not gone away.
- It has become relevant again as the areas auctioning today resemble what was within the Turkey-Libya deal.
- Greece is reacting to a move that appears to be a revival of Turkey’s earlier strategy; this time, they’re wearing Libyan colours.
In fact, just days before this flare-up, Turkey submitted the new Maritime map to UNESCO that challenges the zoning in the Aegean: different sea, same story overlapping claims contested boundaries and the legal frameworks that do not match.
It’s a high-stakes triangle: Crete to the north, Tripoli to the South, and Ankara to the East. The real battle is not oil or gas at all; it’s over who will define the map for it. Greece is defending its position on multiple fronts simultaneously.
A united Europe
Countries like Spain, Italy, and Malta also have their own stakes in the Mediterranean energy; some rely on Libyan cooperation, while others are signing deals with North African energy firms. On this chessboard, supporting Greece is risky for future contracts or inflaming dormant maritime disputes.
Greece understands this, and that’s why it’s acting more quickly on certain matters before hesitation turns into an EU distance. As that solidarity wavers, the Eastern Mediterranean is increasingly looking like a free-for-all because whoever moves first, that’s the fact, and whoever makes the first move draws the map.
This is a fight for recognition in a union that is distracted, divided, and slowly recalibrating its priorities away from the seas and towards its own uncertain centre.
