Greece
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary
Non-signatory Greece says that it shares humanitarian concerns over cluster munitions but cannot accede to the convention due to national security concerns. Greece has abstained from voting on a key annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2020. It participated as an observer in a meeting of the convention in 2016.
Greece states that it has never used cluster munitions. Greece has produced and imported cluster munitions and possesses a stockpile but has not provided information on the quantities and types stockpiled.
Policy
The Hellenic Republic (Greece) has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Greece has provided several reasons for not acceding to the convention, including national security concerns, the cost of stockpile destruction, and positions of neighboringcountries.[1] In 2016, Greece told the Monitor that “compelling reasons of national defense and issues of operational and financial planning” meant that it could not accede to the convention “in the short term.”[2]
Greece participated in two conferences of the Oslo Process that developed the convention text, in Lima in May 2007 and Vienna in December 2007, but attended the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008 only as an observer and did not sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions when it was opened for signature in December 2008.[3]
Greece participated as an observer in the convention’s Sixth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2016, which marked its first and to date only attendance at a meeting of the convention. It was invited to, but did not attend, the first part of the Second Review Conference held virtually in November 2020.
Greece abstained from voting on a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution urging states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible” in December 2020.[4] It has abstained from the vote on this annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.
In 2015–2018, Greece endorsed joint UNGA statements on cluster munitions made by Poland on behalf of itself and other European Union (EU) member states that are not party to the convention—Estonia, Finland, and Romania—that reiterated the need to meet their own “legitimate security concerns and military and defence needs.”[5]
Greece has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2020.[6]
Greece is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Greece is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).
Use
A government official told the Monitor in 2012 that Greece has never used cluster munitions.[7]
In 2013, a Greek defense blog reported on an “intense debate” by the General Staff of the Greek armed forces over procurement efforts to modernize the country’s ammunition for the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) due to the apparent requirement that Greece “select and implement a solution…required by international treaty to ban cluster munitions.”[8]
Production, transfer, and stockpiling
Greece has produced and imported cluster munitions, but it is unclear if it has ever exported them.[9]
In 2011, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official claimed, “the last production of cluster munitions in Greece was in 2001.”[10] Greece has not formally committed to never produce cluster munitions in future.
Greece possesses cluster munitions and while it has not provided information on the quantities stockpiled, its stockpile likely includes two types of ground-delivered cluster munitions which were produced by Hellenic Defence Systems S.A. (EBO-PYRKAL), also known as EAS:[11]
- GRM-49 155mm artillery projectile with 49 dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) submunitions; and
- 107mm high explosive/improved conventional munition (HE/ICM) GRM-20 mortar projectile containing 20 DPICM.
Greece also imported 203mm DPICM artillery projectiles, M26 cluster munition rockets, and Rockeye bombs from the United States (US).[12] US export records show that Greece imported 4,008 CBU-55B cluster bombs between 1970 and 1995.[13] In 2011, a Greek official informed the Monitor that Greece possesses 1,286 CBU-55B cluster bombs.[14]
Greece received the Autonomous Free Flight Dispenser System (AFDS), developed in the past by General Dynamics (US) and LFK (Germany), which disperses various explosive submunitions.[15] According to Jane’s Information Group, Greece also possesses BLG-66 Belouga cluster bombs manufactured in France and US-made CBU-71 cluster bombs.[16]
[1] Emails from Yannis Mallikourtis, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Greece to the UN in Geneva, 1 May 2012, and 14 June 2011; and Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) meeting with Eleftherios Kouvaritakis, First Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Greece to the UN in New York, New York, 10 September 2008.
[2] Letter to Mary Wareham, Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch (HRW), from Ioannis Tsaousis, Charge d’Affairs, Permanent Mission of Greece to the UN in Geneva, 8 April 2016.
[3] For details on Greece’s cluster munition policy and practice through early 2009, see HRW and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 207–208. In 2011, Wikileaks released seven United States (US) Department of State cables dated from March 2007 to November 2008 showing how the US engaged with Greece during the Oslo Process. One cable from December 2007 states, “Greece further shares USG concerns that there are provisions being considered within the Oslo Process that could have a significant impact on military cooperation between countries that adopt such requirements related to cluster munitions and those that do not.” See, “Cluster munitions: Greece shares U.S. concerns,” US Department of State cable dated 12 December 2007, released by Wikileaks on 20 May 2011.
[4] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 75/62, 7 December 2020.
[5] Statement of Poland (on behalf of Estonia, Finland, Greece, and Romania), UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York, 8 November 2018; statement of Poland (on behalf of Estonia, Finland, a Greece, and Romania), UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York, 31 October 2017; statement of Poland (on behalf of Estonia, Finland, Greece, and Romania), UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York, 31 October 2016; and statement of Poland (on behalf of Estonia, Finland, Greece, and Romania), UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York, 4 November 2015. Poland did not provide a statement on behalf of the same group of states at UNGA in 2019 and 2020.
[6] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 75/193, 16 December 2020.
[7] Email from Yannis Mallikourtis, Permanent Mission of Greece to the UN in Geneva, 1 May 2012.
[8] The article was prepared in cooperation with the Athens-based Institute for Security and Defense Analyses. See, “US-German ‘battle’ for Greek MLRS,” Defence Point, 19 December 2013.
[9] A UN explosive ordnance disposal team in Melhadega, Eritrea identified and destroyed a failed M20G dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunition of Greek origin in October 2004. UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea Mine Action Coordination Center, “Weekly Update,” Asmara, 4 October 2004, p. 4.
[10] Email from Yannis Mallikourtis, Permanent Mission of Greece to the UN in Geneva, 14 June 2011.
[11] The company website lists both weapons as produced “in the past.” Hellenic Defence Systems S.A., “Our Products,” accessed 20 July 2013. The Greek Powder and Cartridge Company (Pyrkal) was merged into EAS in 2004.
[12] The US transferred 50,000 M509 203mm projectiles to Greece in 1996 under the Excess Defense Article program. Each M509A1 contains 180 M42/M46 DPICM. US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “Excess Defense Articles,” undated. For the M26, see US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) news release, “Greece – M26A2 MLRS Extended Range Rocket Pods,” Transmittal No. 06–47, 29 September 2006. For Rockeye bombs, see Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2007–2008, CD-edition, 15 January 2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
[13] US Defense Security Co-operation Agency (DSCA), Department of Defense, “Cluster Bomb Exports under FMS, FY1970–Y1995,” 15 November 1995, obtained by HRW in a Freedom of Information Act request, 28 November 1995.
[14] Email from Yannis Mallikourtis, Permanent Mission of Greece to the UN in Geneva, 14 June 2011.
[15] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), pp. 365–367.
[16] Ibid., p. 839.