The Problem
Evros has been used. For decades it has provided Greece and Europe with a secure eastern frontier, absorbed migration pressure that is a pan European responsibility, hosted military infrastructure that serves NATO’s eastern flank, and now anchors a gas terminal that supplies nine countries. In return it has received security spending, some public sector employment and chronic underinvestment in everything else.
The Alexandroupolis INGS terminal connects to the Greek National Natural Gas Transmission System, delivering natural gas to Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia. Fourteen Greek and international companies have committed capacity through at least 2030. This is a facility of European strategic significance.
The political question is who benefits. The answer, currently, is: not the people who live next to it.
This is not unique to Evros. Lesvos, Chios and Samos have absorbed migration flows that are a European responsibility. The northern border regions absorb the costs of Balkan instability. Every Greek region bearing a strategic burden for the nation or for Europe faces the same imbalance.
The Evidence
The principle that strategic infrastructure should generate host community benefit is well established internationally. The UK’s community benefit frameworks for onshore wind require direct payments to host communities. Norway’s petroleum fund distributes resource wealth nationally. Scotland’s community benefit register tracks obligations from energy infrastructure to local communities.
The EU’s own cohesion policy recognises that border regions face specific challenges requiring specific support. Yet the implementation in Greece has consistently prioritised security spending over economic development, leaving border communities dependent on military and public sector employment rather than building diversified local economies.