The policy of the Metaxas regime in the Balkans

The foreign policy of the Metaxas regime inherited a series of commitments and obligations, both on the level of inter-Balkan cooperation and in the bilateral relations of Greece with the Great Powers. The participation of the country in the Balkan Entente was respected and strengthened by the Metaxas dictatorship, especially in the direction of concluding defensive military agreements between the signatories of the Balkan Treaty. In February 1937, the four members of the Treaty (Greece, Turkey, Rumania, Yugoslavia) signed a new military convention, which determined issues of cooperation and mutual assistance for the drafting of joint military plans in the event of a military conflict.

At the same time, Greece played a crucial role in the efforts of the Balkan Entente to bring Bulgaria into the Balkan Treaty. Negotiations reached a fruitful conclusion in June 1938 with the signing of a convention, which removed the condition of obligatory disarmament imposed on Bulgaria by the Treaty of Neuilly after the end of the First World War. The removal of this condition had traditionally been a demand of the Bulgarian governments as a sine qua non for the country's participation in multilateral Balkan agreements. It appeared that, with the convention of 1938, the road was open for the incorporation of revisionist Bulgaria into the Balkan status quo, thus offering new reasons for optimism about the future of inter-Balkan cooperation.