Press release
Lawyers raise alarm as Chevron eyes oil and gas drilling in Greece’s marine havens
19 February 2025
Environmental lawyers are urging the European Commission once again to take action on unlawful oil and gas drilling that threatens Greece’s marine wildlife.
The Greek government has moved to set aside brand new areas for offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation – areas that surround vital Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) along the Ionian coastline.
International fossil fuel giant Chevron and national company HELLENiQ Energy have both expressed formal interest in having further areas opened up for oil and gas activity and the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy has accepted – starting the process for official licencing.
The Greek government simultaneously – and confusingly – announced a major expansion of the Marine Protected Areas in the same coastline location.
The Greek government has repeatedly greenlit fossil fuel drilling activities on the doorstep of Marine Protected Areas without proper checks – which environmental lawyers say is illegal.
Legal experts from ClientEarth, Greenpeace Greece and WWF Greece had previously taken urgent action, filing a formal complaint with the European Commission. The Commission’s resulting investigation into the situation is ongoing.
The environmental lawyers have now written again to the European Commission, reminding them of Greece’s “systematic infringement” of EU law and the “serious consequences for sensitive marine biodiversity in the region”.
ClientEarth lawyer Francesco Maletto said: “Ecosystems that work are one of our principal allies in the climate fight – their importance cannot be overstated and protecting nature should be an absolute priority. But what we’re seeing here is whales, dolphins, turtles and vital seabed ecology being sacrificed for fossil fuels. This is upside-down decision-making and we’re depending on the European Commission to put a stop to it.”
The Hellenic Trench is a globally important biodiversity hotspot, hosting endangered species such as whales, dolphins, Monk seals and Loggerhead turtles. The new sites offered for drilling are even closer to the Marine Protected Areas designed to protect these species than those that triggered the lawyers’ complaint.
Nikos Charalambidis, executive director of Greenpeace Greece, said: "Proudly announcing the creation of a Marine Protected Area, for the protection of sperm whales and other cetaceans, among other protected species, adjacent to concessions for drilling, is a clear indication of both lack of understanding of the needs of marine life and the role of MPAs on one hand and of conflicting interests on the other."
WWF Greece’s chief lawyer Anna Vafeiadou said: “The Greek government’s commitment to establishing the Ionian National Marine Park (INMP) is being seriously compromised by its own acts. The Ministry of Environment and Energy’s recent launch of a new licensing process of offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation blocks, directly adjacent to the forthcoming INMP, reaffirms the government’s persistent failure to effectively protect its valuable biodiversity and to appropriately assess the consequences of these harmful activities.”
In 2024, the Greek government made an internationally significant commitment to ban harmful bottom-trawling in its marine protected areas by 2030 – and by 2026 inside the promised Ionian and Aegean National Marine Parks) – making it all the more perplexing that it is inviting one of the world’s biggest oil and gas players in to drill right next to those same areas.
ClientEarth won a legal battle in Italy in November, halting a major gas project that was set to go ahead in the Po Delta – another wildlife haven. It’s part of a fleet of European cases focusing on marine habitats, aiming to ensure that ‘Protected means Protected’.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
See the story and map regarding the new potential drilling areas here.
ClientEarth, WWF Greece and Greenpeace Greece originally wrote to the European Commission in December 2023, and followed up in September 2024.
The European Commission confirmed at the end of 2024 that they would pursue an investigation.
The NGOs are urging the European Commission to reassess legal and scientific evidence of impact on biodiversity – from activities including drilling, installation of pipelines and platforms, and site decommissioning (sometimes using explosives) – and take action to ensure that EU laws – specifically the Habitats Directive and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive – are not undermined.
Scientific evidence shows that such harmful practices, which include generating loud seismic waves, drilling and an increase in the number of vessels, are likely to jeopardise protected marine areas and threaten endangered species such as whales, dolphins, Monk seals and Loggerhead turtles. Among these are the endangered Mediterranean sperm whale and the vulnerable Cuvier’s beaked whale. These species are found across the Hellenic Trench, a critical habitat and marine biodiversity hotspot of global ecological importance, that extends from the northern Ionian Sea to south of Crete.
Greenpeace has recently released a study stating that new oil and gas could be banned in the EU to meet human rights and climate obligations.
A UK judge ruled in January that approval for two major new oil and gas fields was unlawful – in part because the company had not factored the ‘downstream emissions’ (carbon emissions that result from burning oil and gas) into their impact assessment.
Chevron is the world’s second biggest private hydrocarbons company, based in the USA and active in more than 180 countries.
About ClientEarth
ClientEarth is a non-profit organisation that uses the law to create systemic change that protects the Earth for – and with – its inhabitants. We are tackling climate change, protecting nature and stopping pollution, with partners and citizens around the globe. We hold industry and governments to account, and defend everyone’s right to a healthy world. From our offices in Europe, Asia and the USA we shape, implement and enforce the law, to build a future for our planet in which people and nature can thrive together.
About WWF Greece
WWF Greece is a national organization of the WWF network, founded in the early 90’s. We are actively building and promoting solutions for people, the environment and the climate, with the ultimate goal of coexisting in harmony with nature. In the course of three decades, WWF Greece has worked together with many other partners to design and implement a series of initiatives, ranging from: the establishment and management of protected areas in many parts of the country, the conservation of endangered species, applied conservation research in the field, key policy and governance proposals to the government and the EU, and international collaboration. It has an annual budget of 5 million euros, with a team of 60 people and with head offices in Athens, and project offices in Crete, Zakynthos and Syros. WWF Greece operates as a public welfare foundation. For further information, please visit https://www.wwf.gr/
About Greenpeace Greece
Greenpeace Greece is part of the network of 25 independent national/regional organisations in over 55 countries across Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, as well as a co-ordinating body, Greenpeace International. It is an independent campaigning organisation, which uses peaceful, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and develop solutions for a green and peaceful future. Our work is based on a number of principles which are reflected in all our campaigns and guide whatever we do, wherever we do it. https://www.greenpeace.org/greece/