By Bosphorus News Defense Desk
Greece has moved another part of its Agenda 2030 defense overhaul into practice by establishing three new Special Operations units in Attica, Central Macedonia and northern Evros, two of them staffed entirely by reservists. The move changes how trained personnel will be assigned, mobilized and commanded after leaving active service.
The decision addresses a persistent weakness in the reserve system, under which soldiers who completed demanding Special Forces training often left active service without being assigned to a specific wartime unit, task or mobilization plan. Under the new arrangement, they are expected to know where to report, which formation they belong to and what role they will perform if called up.
The ministry presented the change as a way to ensure that Special Forces training remains operationally useful after personnel leave active service, rather than allowing skills acquired at considerable cost to disappear into an inactive reserve pool.
Its announcement did not disclose the units' official names, size, command relationships, precise locations or readiness dates, nor did it identify which two formations would be staffed entirely by reservists.
Agenda 2030 reaches the force structure
Agenda 2030 is frequently associated with procurement programs such as the planned Achilles' Shield air and missile defense network, new aircraft, naval modernization and investments in drones and counter-drone systems, but its scope extends well beyond acquisitions.
Athens is also closing or merging understrength units, reducing the number of military camps and revising personnel policy, compulsory service, reserve training and military education. The stated aim is to replace a dispersed force, in which personnel are spread across formations below operational strength, with fewer units that are more fully staffed, better prepared and supported by shorter command chains and modern surveillance and unmanned systems.
The three Special Operations formations are among the clearest signs that the manpower side of the reform is moving from planning into implementation.
Athens shortens the command chain
The restructuring has also changed how operational authority is distributed.
The Hellenic First Army, which stood between field formations and the Army General Staff, was removed from the command chain. Four commands were placed directly under the Hellenic Army General Staff: the Supreme Military Command of Thrace, the Supreme Military Command of Epirus and Macedonia, the Supreme Military Command of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, and the Hellenic Army Support Command.
Dendias has repeatedly criticized the old arrangement for forcing even limited decisions through several headquarters before they reached senior military leadership, only for the answer to travel back through the same structure. The replacement model is intended to give regional commands greater room to act and reduce the number of headquarters involved in routine operational decisions, particularly when personnel must be moved, services coordinated or exposed areas reinforced quickly.
The ministry has not said whether the new Special Operations units will report to regional commands, the Army or Greece's joint Special Warfare structure. Their distribution across three parts of the country is consistent with the wider effort to organize deployable forces around distinct operational areas.
Reservists move into named formations
The announcement also forms part of Greece's plan to create an active volunteer reserve of as many as 150,000 personnel.
Under the proposed system, people who completed military service during the previous decade would be able to join a reserve pool that trains regularly and remains connected to operational formations, replacing a model in which many reservists existed largely as names on mobilization lists and had little contact with the units they might join during a crisis.
Reserve Refresher Training Centres have opened at Avlonas and Litochoro, offering updated infantry instruction, battlefield medicine, survival training and courses involving drone and counter-drone systems. The call-up process is also being transferred to the gov.gr platform, reducing reliance on paper notices and police delivery.
For former Special Forces personnel, the change is more immediate: those who previously left active service without a fixed assignment are to be attached to identified formations with defined responsibilities. The two reservist-only units provide the clearest indication so far of how Athens intends to use highly trained former conscripts within the new reserve model.
Why these three regions?
The Defense Ministry has not explained why Attica, Central Macedonia and northern Evros were selected, although each has clear strategic relevance.
Attica contains the capital, senior command facilities, major ports and airports, and a dense concentration of critical infrastructure, although the ministry did not specify the mission assigned to the formation planned for the region.
Central Macedonia includes Thessaloniki, major northern transport corridors and the wider area around the Litochoro reserve training center, although the ministry announced no operational link between them.
Northern Evros has the clearest external-security dimension because it borders Türkiye and forms part of the Thrace operational area. Athens has not said the unit was created specifically for operations against Türkiye, and the available announcement does not support such a claim, but its location places the formation in one of the country's most sensitive military regions, where rapid reinforcement and local command authority carry particular weight.
Assignment matters more than numbers
The importance of the decision lies less in the number of new commandos than in what happens to trained personnel after they leave active service.
Former Special Forces soldiers who once entered a general reserve without a clear destination are now to remain connected to a formation, a task and a mobilization plan. That change captures the less visible side of Agenda 2030: reducing hollow formations, concentrating manpower and ensuring that reservists can return to units that already know who they are and what they are expected to do.
The ministry has yet to disclose the units' command relationships, training cycles or readiness timetable.
Sources: Hellenic Ministry of National Defence, Bosphorus News reporting and review