maritime boundaries between Italy and Greece

Agreement between the Hellenic Republic and the Italian Republic on the Delimitation of the Respective Continental Shelf Areas of the two States 24 May 1977

On 9 June 2020, Greece and Italy signed in Athens a maritime delimitation agreement in the Ionian Sea, completed by a joint Greek-Italian proposal to the European Commission for the modification of the Annex 1 of the Common Fisheries Policy and a declaration on the resources of the Mediterranean. This agreement adopts the continental shelf delimitation line agreed in 1977 for the delimitation of the other zones to which both countries are entitled under International Law. It addresses both countries’ fundamental interests: Italy’s essential fishing interests and Greece’s legal and political concerns related to its half century-old dispute with Turkey over maritime delimitation in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Greece and Italy established their maritime boundary through two bilateral agreements, one in 1977 and the other in 2020. The line was based on a modified application of the equidistance delimitation methodology. Starting in the Strait of Otranto, the line proceeds into the central Mediterranean Sea in a southerly direction for 304 nautical miles. The boundary line is defined by 16 coordinate points that are interconnected by 15 geodesic line segments.