UAE, Greece sign €12.75 billion in deals as Abu Dhabi pledges €15 billion more

Key Points

1. The two governments signed 18 agreements and commercial partnerships valued at €12.75 billion in Athens.
2. Abu Dhabi separately said it intends to invest a further €15 billion across Greek sectors.
3. The pledge builds on a joint investment initiative launched in 2022 at €4 billion.

The latest:

Eighteen memorandums of understanding, agreements and commercial partnerships worth €12.75 billion were signed by the UAE and Greece, Reuters reported, alongside a separate Abu Dhabi announcement of an intended €15 billion in additional investment. The deals were unveiled at the UAE-Greece Strategic Forum in Athens, attended by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Details:

• The headline number: The 18 instruments signed carry a combined value of €12.75 billion and span memorandums of understanding, formal agreements and commercial partnerships, according to Reuters. The signings took place at the UAE-Greece Strategic Forum held in the Greek capital, Athens.
• The separate pledge: The Abu Dhabi Media Office said the emirate intends to invest an additional €15 billion in Greece. That figure sits outside the €12.75 billion in signed deals and was presented as a continuation of an investment track already running between the two governments.
• The existing initiative: According to the Abu Dhabi Media Office, the new money will be added to a joint investment initiative launched in May 2022 with a value of €4 billion. The office did not disclose further detail on how the new investments will be allocated.
• Who attended: Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis both attended the forum where the agreements were announced, giving the package backing at the most senior political level on both sides.
• The talks: Sheikh Khaled held discussions with Mitsotakis on expanding bilateral cooperation across a number of sectors, including energy, infrastructure and healthcare. No timetable was announced for converting those discussions into specific projects.
• The precedent deal: Masdar, the UAE renewable energy company, completed its acquisition of Greek firm Terna Energy over the past year, after buying a 70% stake in the company during 2024 in a transaction with a total value of €3.2 billion.
• The energy backdrop: Abdulla Balalaa, UAE assistant foreign minister for energy and sustainability, told CNBC Arabia that the UAE holds an overseas energy project portfolio exceeding 68 gigawatts, an indication of the scale of the state’s outbound energy strategy.
• What was not specified: Neither the breakdown of the 18 instruments by sector nor the individual value of each agreement was published. The announcement also left open the schedule over which the €15 billion would be deployed.

Background:

The two countries launched a joint investment initiative in May 2022 valued at €4 billion. The latest commitments are being layered onto that existing framework rather than replacing it, according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office.

Between the lines:

The structure of the announcement matters: €12.75 billion is signed paper, while €15 billion remains a stated intention with no disclosed allocation or timeline. The sectors named in the Sheikh Khaled-Mitsotakis talks — energy, infrastructure and healthcare — align with Masdar’s €3.2 billion Terna Energy acquisition, suggesting energy remains the anchor of UAE capital deployment in Greece rather than one sector among several.

What’s next

Watch for the sector-by-sector breakdown of the 18 agreements, any deployment schedule for the €15 billion, and whether Masdar or other Emirati state-linked firms announce follow-on Greek acquisitions in energy or infrastructure.