Promises on the Surface, Silence in the Depths

In Greece, a “commitment” often looks like a polished PowerPoint deck: a few stock photos, colorful arrows, and buzzwords like sustainability, innovation, and ecosystems. But beneath the glossy visuals, action rarely follows.

In April 2024, at the prestigious “Our Ocean” Conference in Athens, the Greek government took the stage as a self-declared guardian of the seas. With broad smiles and wide applause from environmental groups, it announced 21 major ocean protection pledges, totaling a hefty €780 million.

These promises painted a bold vision: two new marine parks in the Ionian and Aegean Seas, protections for biodiversity, crackdowns on overfishing, AI-powered surveillance drones, satellite monitoring, plastic reduction, and a push for the “blue economy.” The narrative was stirring—Greece would no longer be a bystander to the environmental crisis, but a pioneer. A beacon of sustainability in the Mediterranean.

Fast-forward one year. Strip away the polished press releases, and the story changes. The grand declarations now float like driftwood in shallow waters. Environmental organizations claim the government that once promised to save the sea hasn’t even dipped its toes in.

Where Promises Go to Sink

Enter WeSeaYou, a digital watchdog created in 2024 by WWF Greece, Greenpeace, Vouliwatch, and other civil society groups. Its mission is simple: track the government’s 21 pledges in real time, transparently, and hold them accountable. With interactive tools and clear metrics, WeSeaYou acts like an underwater MRI scanner—revealing exactly how much of the fanfare survives beneath the surface.

The findings? Stark. Over the past year, despite the noise, progress has been painfully slow. In a country where announcement is too often confused with implementation, most initiatives remain ink on paper.

“We’ve had our fill of announcements. What matters is action,” says Dimitris Karavellas, CEO of WWF Greece. He’s been monitoring the pledges from day one, and his frustration is growing. “These commitments were genuinely important. That’s why we supported them. But from the beginning, we said: execution is everything. And very little has actually been executed.”

One year in, not even 10% of the pledges related to marine protected areas have moved forward. A widely praised ban on bottom trawling? Still just a press release. AI surveillance drones? More mythical than Atlantis. Even Greece’s much-touted maritime spatial planning falls far short of EU standards. “What we have isn’t a proper plan,” says Karavellas, “just the opening step of a process that’s already years behind schedule—and for which the country was recently condemned by the European Court of Justice.”

Between Words and Water

While ministries speak of “work in progress,” WeSeaYou documents a troubling inertia. The gap between promises and practice is widening, and in some cases, yawning. Karavellas doesn’t sugarcoat it: “Why has so little happened? Is it lack of political will? Expertise? Poor planning? Mixed priorities? Probably all of the above.”

Even the government’s most high-profile pledge—the ban on trawling in protected areas—remains untouched by law. Internationally applauded, but domestically ignored. “It was a critical, necessary move. It generated real optimism. But to date, not a single step has been taken to implement it,” he says.

And the management framework for marine areas? Still fragmented and feeble. Despite repeated announcements, institutional protection remains paper-thin. “We’re a country rich in biodiversity,” Karavellas says, “but poor in how we manage it. It’s a shame—and a scandal.”

The Government Responds

From the other side, the Greek government insists progress is being made—just not in the media spotlight. Petros Varelidis, Secretary-General for Natural Environment and Waters of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, defends the roadmap, stressing that the timeline for each commitment varies.

“These aren’t government promises. They are national ones,” he clarifies. “Some require international ratification, others complex studies. For example, Greece has already ratified the High Seas Biodiversity Treaty (BBNJ). That’s a milestone.”

Varelidis highlights the creation of two large marine parks—pillars of the country’s blue strategy. According to him, the Special Environmental Studies for the Ionian and Southern Aegean parks are nearly complete. Presidential Decrees to formalize the parks are expected by end of 2025. These parks will include a full ban on bottom trawling, a measure also being extended to the existing Northern Sporades marine park.

On surveillance, he admits it’s a “massive infrastructure challenge” but says procurement is underway for drones, radar systems, patrol vessels, and remote sensing technology—all funded by the Recovery and Resilience Facility. By 2026, he promises, a fully operational monitoring system will be in place, linked to a centralized data hub for real-time enforcement.

Greece is also cooperating with the Laskaridis Foundation and Global Fishing Watch, he says, to monitor fishing activity live, in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Shipping.

The Bureaucratic Abyss

A key concern remains whether the government’s main environmental body, the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA), has the resources to deliver. Is it truly equipped—or is it just another overstretched public agency?

Varelidis is adamant: “NECCA has the funds. The real challenge is absorbing them. There’s no shortage of financing—it comes from the state budget, EU funds, the Green Fund, even entrance fees from natural sites like Samaria Gorge. The bottleneck is not money. It’s capacity.”

He lays blame on bureaucratic inertia, understaffing, and sluggish accounting procedures. “Passing laws is the easy part. Implementing them is the hard part,” he says. And when asked about contradictions—like promoting both marine protection and hydrocarbon exploration—Varelidis insists that these conflicts are addressed “before final political decisions are made.”

“Institutional ambiguity is rarely the real issue,” he adds. “It’s often a convenient excuse for those unwilling to act.”

Blueprints Without Builders

Despite the government’s optimism, the truth on the ground tells a different story. The AI remains confined to slideshows. The satellites exist in procurement plans. The promises live on our screens. But out at sea? No radars. No patrols. No action plans. Just words.

Greece, it seems, is building a marine policy out of mirages—drones without drones, laws without enforcement, press releases that promise everything except the obvious: delivery.

Meanwhile, the country’s seas groan under the weight of overfishing, pollution, and the escalating climate crisis. Plastic bags drift like squid. Coastal waters turn to sludge. Tourists snorkel through cigarette butts and construction debris.

And yet, in a few short weeks, Greece will once again take the international stage—this time at the Our Ocean Conference in Nice. New slides, new pledges, new optimism.

Whether this time will be different? The sea, as always, will be watching.