At this point many readers will have seen press reports indicating that a large number of American embassies and consulates are being studied for possible closure, and that the number has risen sharply from about six in Europe previously. Among those consular facilities being considered of seventeen total is the American Consulate General in Thessaloniki, along with two in Germany, five in France and two in Bosnia Herzegovina, to name a few.
As NE Global Media has a significant amount of its staff based in southern Europe, the potential reduction of Washington’s diplomatic presence across the region is now coming up as a subject of significant concern to our key interlocutors.
In fact, this pressure to close down is not really new for the beleaguered staff of the U.S. Consulate General in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. We are aware of at least two previous failed attempts to close the post, usually at the recommendation of State Department inspection teams who rate the value of each U.S. consulate on many factors, not just the provision of consular services to the local resident American community, which has been particularly vibrant in northern Greece for decades. Every U.S. federal agency has internal management systems which regulate that agency’s growth and personnel staffing, and the State Department is no different except in that there are more retired senior diplomats involved in these operations than the usual button-down financial management types.
Even so, the State Department’s “bean counters” are less interested in the impact of their recommendations on bilateral relations, people-to-people contacts and geopolitical issues, and have been ordered look primarily at cost factors. That is a major mistake in itself. It is obvious that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is involved here but as noted above, internal processes in the State Department also rank the utility each consulate in Europe provides against others doing the same work in other nearby countries, as if they are gladiators thrown into a pit full of lions and told to fight it out. We cannot really be sure if the senior officers handling these post reviews even produce any type of matrix that would rank these diplomatic posts’ output against that done by our major adversaries, and this should unquestionably be the ultimate decision factor, not the budget. Congress should demand the State Department do this before considering withdrawing the U.S. flag from any of our far-flung diplomatic posts.
The glimmer of good news in all of this recent gloom is Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s very recent elevation to the position of National Security Advisor (NSA). At the level of the White House, he should have the authority to deflect if not neutralize pressure coming from DOGE and set the pace of the State Department’s downsizing so that only the highest level of the U.S. Government (NSA Rubio and the President) will be making any budget-driven diplomatic post closure decisions.
In addition, there will certainly be pushback from concerned citizen groups and ethnic lobbying organizations that NSA/Secretary of State Rubio will have to consider carefully. The Consulate General in Thessaloniki has grown in staffing in recent years so there are now three U.S. diplomats posted there. This is a substantial increase from the recent past where the post languished for a long period with a single U.S. diplomat running the show, and working hard to show the flag. In fact, there had been a series of stealth downgrades of the American staff “grades” (levels) in addition to local staff cuts in the decade before 2018 while the fate of the Consulate General was being reviewed. Fortunately geopolitical developments were shifting significantly so that the importance of northern Greece was seen to rise.
Geopolitical importance of Thessaloniki and Alexandroupolis
Sometimes the situation with America’s European consulates resembles a case of “erase and rewind,” as the well-known song goes. But because of the growing geopolitical importance of Thessaloniki, and now Alexandroupolis, as defense and transit centers for NATO in Southeast Europe, as well as of northern Greece as a regional commercial and strategic energy hub and center for technology as well as a unique locus of American education, the geostrategic value for Washington of keeping multiple sets of eyes, ears and even hands in the region has risen, which is why staffing has grown.
The growth of Russian influence in and around northern Greece’s main port city is also a critical factor, with a Putin-aligned oligarch of Greek origin, Ivan Savvidis, making steady acquisitions in key sectors like the Port Authority, a major sports team and media outlets to name a few strategic takeovers. U.S. officials have openly sounded the alarm on a number of occasions, and it has been encouraging to see the American Consulate General’s staffing increase in response. It should not be forgotten that Greece last expelled 12 Russian diplomatic personnel in 2022 shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, some for “interfering with Greek internal affairs.” And that was not the first time.
There may well be room for some downsizing in place of full closure for the Thessaloniki Consulate General, a pattern seen before as the region evolved. Through the years, the Consulate General had become a vital Balkan listening post, especially during the Bosnia and Kosovo wars, later a logistics and coordination hub for setting up the newer U.S. Balkan embassies, an important point of American outreach to Greeks outside the capital Athens, and it now provides diplomatic coverage and services that are essential to NATO’s Ukraine war support effort and European energy security.
It should be recalled that any decision regarding Thessaloniki would become controversial in the upcoming Senate hearings for incoming Trump administration Ambassador-designate Kimberly Guilfoyle, who certainly has more direct access to the American President than many career diplomats who are facing similar closures in their countries.
It would be a deeply negative signal for NSA/Secretary of State Rubio to be put into the position of swearing in a dynamic new Ambassador in the next months who would then be dispatched to preside over the closing of such an important diplomatic outpost at a time when almost everyone agrees that U.S.-Greece relations are near their zenith, if that matters to the Trump administration.
