FP (Foreign Policy)
February 05, 2026
ON DEMAND NOW
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: “I’m not yet ready to call the post-World War II order dead.”
As Europe wakes up to the reality of a nakedly transactional United States, its leaders are more openly declaring the need to spend more on defense and imagine a world without Washington’s guaranteed embrace. One country that has long been talking up such a path is Greece, a NATO member that spends more than 3 percent of its GDP on defense in part because of its perceived threat from neighboring Turkey.
“I haven’t given up on the trans-Atlantic relationship,” said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister of Greece, speaking on FP Live. “I do believe that the bonds that connect us and that have essentially established the post-World War II order may be weaker, but they’re still there.”
Mitsotakis has long advocated for strategic autonomy—a wonkish term to describe a country or region being able to set its own priorities. Now, he thinks the rest of Europe is getting on board. But he wants to do so while staying friends with Washington. “I’m not yet ready to call the post-World War II order dead. And I will continue to engage constructively with the U.S., to also explain to my U.S. friends and our U.S. partners that at the end of the day, if you look at the global landscape, it is in the interest of the United States to have a strong economic security defense relationship with Europe,” he said.
And how will Europe expand defense production without taking money away from other sectors? Mitsotakis: “If our growth rates are stuck at around 1 percent and if our leading economies are growing under 1 percent, it will be difficult to finance the investments that we need to create a European defense market. We need to change the competition rules in Europe. We need to allow for more mergers. We need to nurture the defense ecosystem. We have amazing start-ups. In Greece, this is not just about the big platforms: the ships, the airplanes. It’s also about innovation. And Europe, and Greece for that matter, has incredible talent in which we would like to invest. But we will not reach our defense targets if we cannot agree on how we will fund our defense spending. And improving our competitiveness and strengthening our fiscal position is an absolute prerequisite to do that.”
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Q&A
Greek PM: ‘I haven’t given up on the trans-Atlantic relationship.’
Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Trump, NATO, and how Athens thinks about strategic autonomy.
By Ravi Agrawal, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy.
No audio? Hover over the video player, and tap the Click to Unmute button. Subtitles are also available. Closed captioning provided by Vimeo and may contain minor inconsistencies.
February 5, 2026, 2:13 PM
As Europe wakes up to the reality of a nakedly transactional United States, its leaders are more openly declaring the need for increased defense spending and a broader shift toward what is known as strategic autonomy—a wonkish term for a country or region to be able to set its own priorities. One country that has long been talking up such a path is Greece, a NATO member that spends more than 3 percent of its GDP on defense in part because of its perceived threat from neighboring Turkey. Greece is also responsible for around a quarter of global shipping, making it especially reliant on international trade.
On the latest episode of FP Live, I spoke with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a center-right and liberal politician who has served as Greece’s prime minister since 2019. We discussed the trans-Atlantic relationship, how Greece navigates the Trump administration, the country’s challenges with immigration, security, and much else. Subscribers can watch the full interview on the video box atop this page or download the free FP Live podcast. What follows here is a condensed and lightly edited transcript.
Ravi Agrawal: I have to start with the trans-Atlantic relationship. U.S. President Donald Trump seems to have pulled back from his recent demands to buy Greenland. How much has that incident—that drama that we all saw in Davos last month—hurt the relationship between Europe and the United States?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: First of all, let me point out, as we discussed a couple of years ago, that President Trump was right when he pointed out that Europe was not contributing its fair share when it came to defense spending, and that we had essentially outsourced the security of our continent to the United States. Greece was an exception to the rule. We’ve been spending more than 2 percent of our GDP [on defense] for many years, due to our peculiar geographic and geopolitical challenges. We’re now above 3 percent. But most of the continent only woke up to the realization that we need to take our strategic autonomy more seriously since President Trump was reelected to the White House.
So I think that in that sense, this “rude awakening” was necessary in order for us to take our own security seriously. And we have made significant progress with the commitments to spend significantly more within NATO but also a general understanding that regardless of what happens in NATO, Europe as a whole needs to develop its own defense architecture. I’ve been calling for more European defense spending for quite some time. And I’m quite happy that most European leaders have realized, maybe slightly later than I would have wanted them to, that this is now becoming an indispensable necessity for Europe.
RA: I agree on the defense issue, and we’ll come back to it. But this is about more than that. On an issue like Greenland, Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff, has called international law “international niceties.” The United States has also overstepped when it comes to international law on Venezuela, for example. How does that resonate in a place like Greece?
KM: Greece has been a firm believer in international law ever since the post-World War [II] international security and defense arrangement was put into place. We are a nonpermanent member of the [United Nations] Security Council. And when it comes to our regional geopolitical disputes, we always put forward the fundamental premise that they can only be resolved by reference to international law, and in particular, the law of the seas. But at the same time, we’re not naive. We do understand that in these turbulent times, it is important to build our own defense and security capabilities. So without changing our fundamental premise, we do recognize that international relations have become, in a sense, more transactional and that we need to build our own strength. Speaking for my country: our own economic strength, our own defense strength, our own soft-power strength in terms of completely rebranding a country that was hit very, very harshly from the financial crisis. So, we will continue to maintain that the rules-based international order is in our broader interest while not being naive about a changing world, which, frankly, as a medium-sized European country, we cannot really influence.
RA: Well, let’s talk about strategic autonomy then. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech in Davos seemed to resonate globally with his broader point that there’s a rupture in the world order and that we’re entering a world in which might is right and where size matters. He cited Thucydides, which I imagine was popular in Greece. And of course, Canada is a bigger economy than, for example, Greece is. What is your sense of a world that moves in a direction that favors size over rules? How does a country like Greece think about that scenario?
KM: Well, first of all, let me point out that I haven’t given up on the trans-Atlantic relationship. And I do believe that the bonds that connect us and that have essentially established the post-World War II order may be weaker, but they’re still there. And especially when you look at NATO and how instrumental the U.S. still is in terms of providing critical capabilities to Europe, one would be naive to argue right now that Europe can all of a sudden defend itself without relying on our U.S. partners.
And I do also need to point out that Greece has a privileged strategic partnership with the United States. We have a very strong security and defense arrangement. We may talk a little bit about energy because I think it is playing a critical role in the new geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape.
I speak as a proud Greek, a proud European, but also as someone who will continue to work to mend the rifts and the tension in the trans-Atlantic relationship. So, I’m not yet ready to call the post-World War II order dead. And I will continue to engage constructively with the U.S., to also explain to my U.S. friends and our U.S. partners that at the end of the day, if you look at the global landscape, it is in the interest of the United States to have a strong economic security defense relationship with Europe.
There are ways to find win-win solutions when you come to Greenland. I think Europe made it very, very clear, and I think it was important, that there are red lines which simply cannot be crossed. But we need to do that, I’d say, in a non-dramatic manner, a non-escalatory manner, and to also convince the United States that its legitimate security concerns in the Arctic can be addressed without crossing these red lines. And my sense is that, when it comes to Greenland, we are moving in that direction.
RA: But when you said that Europe cannot take care of itself right away—that it can’t suddenly do without the United States—that implies that 10 years from now, it would like to get there. So what does Europe need to do to up its defense spending? And where does the money come from, given the continent’s history with overshooting its fiscal balance sheets, and then having problems with austerity?
KM: Let me point out that the U.S. is also not in a very enviable fiscal position, but the U.S. is the U.S. and can afford to fund its own deficits.
The flip side of a robust defense is a robust economy. This whole discussion around European competitiveness, of how will we establish higher growth rates, how can we be more competitive, is necessary not only to create more jobs, to improve disposable income, but also to create the fiscal space within our national balance sheets to fund and increase spending and defense, which is going to come from public money, potentially European money, but it’s also going to come from private investments. We will have an absolutely critical European Council take place in a week from now. And competitiveness is going to be the sole issue that we will discuss. Mario Draghi produced an excellent report a year ago. Have we implemented it? Not really. We have not really moved in that direction at the speed that I would like. So, this is a time to really increase our speed, shift gears.
If I look at the example of Greece, we’re spending more than 3 percent of our GDP on defense, but we are producing surpluses. We are also bringing down our debt at the same time. And we still have enough fiscal space to also cut taxes. Why can we do that? Because we have a high growth rate.
So, what we have been doing in Greece, we need to replicate at the European level. If our growth rates are stuck at around 1 percent and if our leading economies are growing under 1 percent, it will be difficult to finance the investments that we need to create a European defense market. We need to change the competition rules in Europe. We need to allow for more mergers. We need to nurture the defense ecosystem. We have amazing start-ups. In Greece, this is not just about the big platforms: the ships, the airplanes. It’s also about innovation. And Europe, and Greece for that matter, has incredible talent in which we would like to invest. But we will not reach our defense targets if we cannot agree on how we will fund our defense spending. And improving our competitiveness and strengthening our fiscal position is an absolute prerequisite to do that.
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RA: Let’s move this one step further. Tell us how countries agree on creating that base of defense spending and funding. Europe, of course, over the last 80 years has built this great welfare state, but it’s come at the price of relying on the United States for its defense and relying on Russia for its energy. As those things are taken away, there’s a theory that the money has to come from somewhere. And this is, at its heart, a tough conversation that leaders need to have with their citizens. How do you have that conversation?
KM: Very much so. First of all, in Greece, this sort of dilemma was not really that relevant because of the fact that we had our own security concerns with Turkey. There was a generally accepted social contract that we needed to spend more on defense. What I’m doing is not just spending more on defense, but also nurturing a Greek defense ecosystem, so that we don’t just buy weapons and systems from abroad, but we also have significant domestic contribution.
In other European countries, it’s more difficult. If you don’t face a direct threat, that discussion becomes more complicated. But I would look at what we did after COVID. We created a big pot of money. We borrowed, at the European level, 750 billion euros to address the COVID crisis. And I think it was a very successful project. And I do still believe that there are European projects of common interest—let’s say missile defense—where we could imagine creating a dedicated European defense facility that would benefit all countries. This is the ultimate European common good, after all. And it would benefit the entire continent. So why not create a special instrument that will allow us to borrow at the European level to fund these types of projects? We’re not there yet, but I do sense that there’s more interest in having this discussion at the European level, because you’re right to point out our budgets are stretched. Our citizens demand that we maintain our welfare state.
In Greece, I do need to point out that we’ve made the difficult reforms that other European countries have not yet made. Our retirement age, for example, is already at 67 years old. So we know that we can fund our social state through our own budgets. Other European countries are still struggling to do that. But these sorts of discussions need to take place.
And I would also add one more point, and this relates to European collective defense arrangements. We have a clause in our European treaties. It’s Article 42, paragraph 7. This is the equivalent of [NATO’s] Article 5 in the European Union. It’s a mutual assistance clause, actually phrased even more strongly than Article 5. We talk very little about it in Europe. The time has come to really put it at the forefront and to say, “Look, regardless of what happens with NATO, we in Europe have agreed that if a member state under any circumstance is attacked, we have our own collective mutual assistance clause.” So all this is not at the expense of NATO, because I think NATO is going to become stronger if we take our defense more seriously, and the United States is going to take us more seriously if we start upping our game and spending more on defense and taking our collective European security more seriously.
RA: There are of course fissures within Europe; it’s not a monolith. There are fissures within NATO as well. You mentioned Turkey here. You’re meeting [Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan later this month. Erdogan is a leader who, four years ago, said he no longer even recognizes your existence. What are you hoping to get out of this meeting?
KM: I’ll be visiting Ankara next Wednesday, leading a high-level Greek delegation, so we have a G2G format which we have created. Of course, we’ve had our differences with Turkey. One major difference that we recognize in Greece is the delimitation of our maritime zones in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean. This difference goes back decades. But I think we’ve worked constructively over the past years to diffuse tensions and to recognize that, even if we cannot solve this major problem, which hasn’t been resolved for many decades, we can still have a working relationship, a constructive relationship on certain fronts. I’ll be going to Ankara, making our very clear points with regards to our main difference, but also trying to build upon the progress that we have made over the past year.
RA: There was a tragedy on your shores this week, in which 15 migrants died in the Aegean Sea. Do you have a clear account of what actually happened? Reportedly, the Coast Guard vessel collided with a boat, and then that boat capsized—
KM: Let me say that it is my obligation—it’s a tragedy—we need a full investigation. My preliminary, and I stress this, information is that essentially our Coast Guard ship was rammed by a much smaller boat. We don’t know why this happened.
People found themselves in the sea; people died; people were rescued. But I do expect a full investigation, and I will leave it up to the competent authorities to determine exactly what happened.
But this is the situation that happens quite frequently in the Aegean. You have smugglers putting people without life vests, let me point that out. You have 40 people crammed in a 30-foot boat with very strong engines; the sole purpose is to get to a Greek island. My Coast Guard, we’re not a welcoming committee. Our job is to protect our borders, but our job is also to save people whose lives are threatened. And if it were not, I can tell you, but for the Coast Guard, we would have more people die after this accident.
RA: But prime minister, if I may, part of the job is also transparency. And so I have to ask, will any video that emerges from the government side be released? I bring this up because in 2023, there was a much bigger tragedy where hundreds of migrants died. Videos later emerged of the Coast Guard attempting to bump into a trawler, not the other way around. So if there is any official video, will that be released?
KM: The incident you are referring to was not under my watch. At the time, we had a provisional government in power. There is again a full investigation. If there is any video footage, I make a full commitment that this investigation will take place with full transparency.
RA: That’s good to hear.
Zooming out from the tragedy of this week, I want to ask you more broadly about the concept of asylum and where immigration is today. In country after country, including Greece and the United States, there is a real backlash against immigration. Your own policies, which are tougher on illegal immigration, seem to be quite popular, even when you face criticism from rights groups. How do you think about what is the right thing for a country to do?
KM: First of all, let me point out that back in 2020, Greece was the first country to suffer from a hybrid operation, where migrants were pushed in an organized manner to reach our land borders and to enter into European territory. At the time we said, “This is not going to happen.” We protected our borders. So my approach is very, very simple. Tough on illegal migration—make it very difficult for people to come into the country illegally—but also be generous and offer legal pathways to migration. And of course, those people who do enter and who are entitled asylum can stay in Greece. We have numerous examples that we take care of these people. We try to integrate them.
But if you enter Greece illegally and you’re not entitled asylum, I will do whatever I can to send you back, either to the country of origin or to the country of transit. So it’s very open.
When I came into power, unemployment was at 18 percent. Now, it’s dipped under 8 percent. We have labor shortages. We need skilled and unskilled labor. We would like to welcome people from abroad to work and live in Greece, but we want to do it on our own terms.
RA: Let me bring up one last region of the world in this discussion, and that is the Middle East. President Trump recently proposed a Board of Peace for the future of Gaza. You were one of many European leaders to reject that invitation. Why is that?
KM: We did not join the Board of Peace for legal reasons, voicing some concerns which were shared by other European partners. But my proposal to the U.S. and to my European partners was very straightforward: Let’s find a way for those European countries that are interested in Gaza to find a way to opt in to the Board of Peace, but only for Gaza. Because what was presented as a Board of Peace was not just about Gaza; it was a new organization. And that made us skeptical, because the initial U.N. resolution was just about Gaza. So, if there’s a way to opt in to the structure, but only for Gaza, in a time-defined manner and under the auspices of a U.N. Security Council resolution, I’d be happy to do that. And I think many other European countries would be happy to do this as well.
RA: Have you heard back from the United States having voiced those concerns?
KM: No, not yet, but I think it’s a work in progress.
RA: I’m going to return to where we began this interview, and that is the United States, especially under President Trump in his second term. Prime minister, you’re incredibly diplomatic. You seem to have figured out a way to work with the United States on energy and security. It’s very clear to me as well that you are hedging your bets for the future of the continent. What is the right way to deal with the Trump administration right now?
KM: First of all, I wear two hats. I’m a national leader, and again, I cherish the relationship with the U.S. I’m going to make sure that it’s as constructive as possible. But I’m also a European leader who will stand firm when it comes to making sure we hold the European line, when at times, things get dodgy in our relationship. Being honest and transparent, and making sure that we set clear boundaries and limits in terms of what can be accepted and what cannot be accepted, seems to me to be the best path forward. Again, I’m one of the few European leaders who worked with President Trump during his first administration, and I had a very constructive relationship.
RA: But if I may, analysts like me have pointed out that Trump 1 is very different from Trump 2.
KM: To a certain extent, that’s true, and I’ve not met him in person. We’ve not had a proper bilateral relationship. But again, as Europe, we need to be very clear in terms of what will happen if things were to escalate out of control. If tariffs were to be imposed, for example, as threats were made—this would not be productive because it would elicit a reaction. I think the moment we made that very clear, I think it became also obvious to the administration that there’s more to lose than to win in terms of pursuing this path of action.
So again, setting our boundaries, being very clear, being engaging, but certainly being non-escalatory and not provoking a fight with the U.S. This is the path we are taking. And when it comes to the bilateral relationship: making sure that we find win-win deals like the energy deal, which work for both countries, and for Europe as a whole. If we have made a decision to move away from Russian gas, we need to replace it with something. And I’m quite happy to replace it with American LNG.
Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy. X: @RaviReports
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