The Eastern Mediterranean, once a theatre of historical rivalries and geopolitical tensions, now emerges as a potential corridor of peace and prosperity. The inaugural Maritime Med Athens 2025 conference, held on May 28th, brought together over 200 Greek and Israeli business leaders to explore this transformation through enhanced maritime cooperation. This gathering signals a significant maturation in regional relations, where shared economic interests increasingly outweigh traditional antagonisms.
“This event transcends the political circumstances,” remarked Israeli Ambassador to Greece Noam Katz, highlighting how maritime collaboration has become a cornerstone of bilateral relations. Indeed, the conference’s focus on the “blue economy”—sustainable development in the maritime sector—represents a pragmatic approach to regional integration that bypasses more contentious political issues.
The strategic relevance of this partnership is increasingly difficult to ignore. As global shipping routes face increasing threats and energy security concerns mount across Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean’s position as a critical junction between three continents offers unique advantages for those nations able to cooperate effectively.
Security imperatives in contested waters
Maritime security featured prominently at the conference, with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) showcasing advanced technologies designed to protect maritime borders. Captain Sassi Hodeda, Head of Naval Strategy and Planning at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), presented a multi-layered defense system integrating satellites, radar, UAVs, and artificial intelligence analytics—providing real-time surveillance and threat detection across territorial and international waters.
This emphasis on security reflects the complex challenges facing Eastern Mediterranean nations. From conventional naval threats to emerging concerns like underwater sabotage and drone attacks, the region’s maritime domain requires sophisticated monitoring and response capabilities. The Israeli approach, born of necessity, focuses on creating interoperable systems that can share critical data with regional allies.
For Greece, with its vast maritime territory and thousands of islands, such cooperation offers significant advantages. Greek shipping companies control approximately 20% of global maritime transport capacity, making the protection of sea lanes a national economic priority. The potential integration of Israeli security technologies with Greek maritime operations could substantially enhance regional stability.
Energy corridors and power plays
Energy cooperation dominated much of the conference agenda, with Mathios Rigas, founder and CEO of Energean, discussing his company’s $3 billion investment in Israeli natural gas production. The strategic implications of these energy developments extend far beyond commercial considerations, reshaping regional alliances and European energy security.
Chen Herzog, Chief Economist at BDO Consulting Israel, outlined Israel’s transformation into a natural gas exporting nation and proposed how combining Greece’s wind energy capabilities with Israel’s solar power could create a stable regional electricity network. Such integration would require significant infrastructure investments, including the long-discussed EastMed pipeline and a multinational energy corridor connecting the Middle East to Europe.
However, practical challenges remain. Despite Energean continuing to supply 60% of Israel’s natural gas even during wartime, increasing demand from Egypt means there’s currently no surplus for European exports – even if infrastructure were available, which would take years to develop. This reality underscores the gap between strategic ambitions and current capabilities in the region.
The case of Cyprus’s Aphrodite gas field, cited by Rigas as a characteristic example of development delays, illustrates how political differences continue to hamper energy development. His call for governments—not private companies—to resolve these differences highlights the persistent tension between commercial opportunities and geopolitical realities in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Technological innovation as strategic leverage
The conference showcased how technological innovation increasingly drives maritime cooperation between Greece and Israel. Representatives from SHIPPIN and ORCA AI Greece presented AI-based maritime safety systems that detect mechanical faults, navigation hazards, and human errors in real-time—critical for minimizing accidents and ensuring passenger ship safety.
These technological synergies extend beyond commercial applications. George Mangos, Co-founder and Director of SOKANA, emphasized national interests in cooperating with Israel on smart agriculture, water desalination, and tourism development, while highlighting the need for greater defensive power at sea—especially for cruise ships and national fleets.
This convergence of commercial and security technologies reflects a broader trend in Eastern Mediterranean maritime affairs, where distinctions between civilian and military applications increasingly blur. The region’s complex threat environment demands flexible, dual-use capabilities that can address both commercial and security concerns.
For Greece, with its strong maritime tradition but limited defense industrial base, partnership with Israel’s advanced technology sector offers access to capabilities that would otherwise be difficult to develop domestically. Similarly, Israeli companies gain access to the extensive operational experience of the Greek maritime sector, creating mutually beneficial knowledge exchange.
Strategic horizons and practical realities
The Eastern Mediterranean stands at a crossroads of trade, entrepreneurship, development, and innovation, making enhanced maritime cooperation between Israel and Greece essential for fully leveraging the region’s potential. Yet translating conference declarations into operational realities requires overcoming significant obstacles.
Michalis Thomadakis, Director of Strategy and Development at DESFA S.A., presented Greece’s strategy for natural gas storage and carbon emissions trading, reinforcing Greece’s role as a reliable energy hub. This positioning aligns with broader European efforts to diversify energy sources away from Russian dependence, giving the Greek-Israeli partnership strategic significance beyond bilateral relations.
Ambassador Yael Ravia-Zadok, Deputy Director General for Economic Affairs at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, outlined ambitious strategic goals: doubling business collaborations, expanding into innovation sectors beyond tourism and real estate, and enhancing regional cooperation through EU programs like “Horizon Europe.” She emphasized leveraging maritime connectivity as key to future economic integration.
The announcement of an active business ecosystem to facilitate relationships between interested companies represents a practical step toward these goals. However, the history of Eastern Mediterranean cooperation is littered with ambitious declarations that failed to materialize into concrete projects.
What distinguishes current efforts is their focus on specific, achievable objectives rather than grand geopolitical designs. By concentrating on maritime security, energy development, and technological innovation, Greece and Israel have identified areas where cooperation offers immediate mutual benefits while building foundations for more comprehensive integration.
The Eastern Mediterranean’s maritime renaissance thus proceeds incrementally, driven by practical cooperation in areas of shared interest rather than sweeping regional transformations. For nations with complex histories and competing priorities, this approach may prove more sustainable than previous attempts at regional realignment.