Answers to a hypothetical scenario involving flights by “unknown” drones over a Greek airport during the tourist season—or the sudden collapse of electronic communications—are being provided to representatives of the private sector, public administration, and local government through National Security Seminars. These seminars aim to coordinate the state (and beyond) for any eventuality in an increasingly turbulent geopolitical environment.

The General Secretariat for National Security is leading the mobilization and is currently running the second seminar in the series, with a goal of holding at least four per year. What sets these seminars apart from typical training is the real-time processing of multiple scenarios: working groups are tasked with managing crisis situations involving military officials, scientists, local government representatives, and, crucially, operators of “critical infrastructure,” such as utility networks, telecommunications, transport infrastructure, and managers of public goods.

All Civil Servants on Standby

A progressive objective of the General Secretariat for National Security is to bring both civil society and all civil servants into this “state of readiness.” Special training programs will be rolled out in cooperation with the General Secretariat for Public Administration to familiarize participants with new concepts—and, above all, new conditions.

Early results from familiarizing the state apparatus with hybrid threats show that even when such a threat was suspected, its nature and scope were often unclear. For this reason, participants are exposed to alternative scenarios covering the full spectrum of hybrid threats, while monitoring in real time the corresponding mobilization across many European states and the sequence of events.

UAVs at Airports

Against this backdrop, repeated incidents of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flights over European airports since September (in Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, Belgium, etc.) have heightened concern and preparedness for responding to illegal drone flights. A comparable level of readiness also exists for cybersecurity issues and for protecting energy infrastructure and resources.

Mapping Readiness

In Greece’s readiness chain, critical links include coordinated action among all involved bodies, accurate information to ensure swift responses, immediate communication among the structures and individuals to be mobilized, and strengthening the resilience of the country’s critical infrastructure by closing vulnerability gaps that could make certain assets easier targets.

To this end, working groups coordinated by the General Secretariat for National Security include representatives from relevant ministries, network operators, companies managing public goods, and local authorities—whose proximity to citizens is vital in any potential crisis.

For the first time, critical entities and the networks of people who manage them are being mapped and trained to address hybrid threats, creating an extensive, personalized readiness network that involves both the private and public sectors. The ambition is to clearly define who does what at the moment a hybrid threat emerges—from recognizing it as such to managing it overall—especially given that critical infrastructure underpins not only national security but the smooth functioning of the country.

At the same time, there is a need to familiarize citizens with the content and forms of hybrid threats, particularly as many rely on disinformation aimed at influencing public opinion from within states.

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