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Greece is one of the Euro zone countries that economically suffers the most from the EU sanctions against Russia. Their "flirting" with Russia, as you said, is merely trying to find a way to continue to sell greek agricultural produce to Russia. Given the economical state of Greece I think that's a pretty sensible approach.

[macmac]

Russia's share of Greek exports is less than 2%. Total value of the goods covered by the Russian sanctions is approx mio 200 EUR / year. I sincerely doubt that it is worth jeopardising EUs long term economic support to the Greek economy in an attempt to circumvent Russian sanctions even if individual Greeks or even sectors are hit hard by them.

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@peterfirefly (sorry, I can't reply directly to you because of the negative karma of my original post)

Yes, the EU are of bigger importance, but OTOH those trade partners are still there. Only the exports to Russia are lost. If the trade amount relative to GDP really is 1%, that would amount to more than 2 billion Euros in lost trade. Greece is small and in a precarious financial situation, I can understand why they risk to affront other EU members for those 2 billion.

[peterfirefly]

The Greek loss due to the Russian undeclared war against Ukraine is tiny, even if it meant that all the trade with Russia disappeared (which it doesn't).

Compare with Finland and Sweden when the Soviet Union fell.

They were hit a lot harder but they cleaned up and enacted reforms. They certainly didn't complain that Greece was unreasonable for not lending (or giving) them money so that things could continue as before.

[ptaipale]

Not only after Soviet Union fell. Also in the current trade war, Greece's problems from Russian sanctions are negligible when compared to Sweden and particularly Finland. Russian trade was almost 10 % of Finnish exports in 2012 and has since then collapsed. Finland will very soon be in a position where it is not possible to pledge any bailout money for Greece. Even if not counting the political fallout.

[dang]

> sorry, I can't reply directly to you because of the negative karma

There's a delay on replying sometimes but it isn't karma-related.

[peterfirefly]

How much of Greece's foreign trade is with Russia? Isn't about 1%?

Do they not trade more with Turkey (and Germany) and about a handful of other countries?