Greece Defense Counter-Unmanned Underwater Vehicles Plan
Under a new 12-year, €25 billion defense initiative, Greece is undertaking a comprehensive overhaul of its military infrastructure. Backed by a 2025 defense budget of €6.1 billion ($6.5 billion) — which maintains Greek defense spending near 3% of GDP keeping Greece above its NATO GDP allocation — the Hellenic Ministry of Defense is shifting procurement resources toward autonomous and unmanned platforms.
While aerial platforms draw frequent public attention, subsea warfare, autonomous surface operations, and maritime domain awareness across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean are becoming priorities. On October 13, 2026, Defense Minister Nikos Dendias inaugurated the Interdisciplinary Training Center for Unmanned and Autonomous Maritime Systems at Kanellopoulos Naval Base in Skaramangas. During the ceremony, the Defense Minister presented the “Pyrpolitis,” an unmanned surface vessel designed and developed by the Hellenic Navy General Staff to deliver surveillance, reconnaissance, and offensive capabilities.
Defense Minister Dendias stressed the importance of domestic defense innovation, noting that scaling up production of the new vessel will be vital to reinforcing the Hellenic Navy’s operational fleet. While unmanned/autonomous will not replace legacy platforms, Hellenic Navy is placing an emphasis on creating a hybrid fleet that supports geography, manning, acquisition costs, and capability. Protecting complex island geography and subsea energy pipelines relies on expanding autonomous surface vessels (ASVs), unmanned underwater platforms (UUVs), and counter-UUV assets.
Capabilities and Procurement Priorities
Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) represent a growing area of interest for underwater surveillance, seabed monitoring, mine countermeasures, and covert anti-submarine warfare screening designed to protect regional energy assets. Counter Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (C-UUVs) focus on the development and deployment of counter-subsea systems to address the emerging threat of hostile UUVs targeting strategic national investments, ports, and subsea infrastructure. Integrating AI and machine learning allows autonomous platforms to make real-time tactical decisions, operate in coordinated swarms, and navigate underwater without relying on GPS signals. Meanwhile, modular open-architecture designs make it easy to plug third party sonars, secure communications, and mission specific payloads directly onto locally built hulls.
Opportunities for US Firms
Greece’s long-term defense strategy offers U.S. defense contractors and technology providers significant opportunities across three main avenues. The first is technology collaboration on advanced subsea systems, autonomous navigation algorithms, and multi-agent mission management software. The second is equipment supply of specialized components, including compact towed-array sonars, synthetic aperture sonars, pressure-neutral batteries, and acoustic communication modems. The third is training, long-term support, and system integration through co-production or co-manufacturing partnerships with local Hellenic defense entities to satisfy domestic work-share mandates.
General Info
For more information on tenders please visit the links below:
U.S. firms interested in showcasing their capabilities and solutions should consider attending or exhibiting at the biannual DEFEA show held in Athens in May 18 - 20, 2027. For more info, please click DEFEA SHOW. U.S. firms interested in showcasing their maritime capabilities should consider attending or exhibiting at the biannual Posidonia show held in Athens in June 5 - 9, 2028.
Point of Contact
For more information on identifying potential partners, market conditions and opportunities, please contact U.S. Commercial Service - Defense, Safety & Security and Shipping Commercial Specialist Athina Kladis at Athina.Klads@trade.gov.