Seismological and GPS data are used in order to examine the seismotectonic setting and the plate motions in the Eastern Mediterranean. The main objective is to reevaluate the recently proposed idea of a single Anatolia-Aegean microplate, which performs a rigid body rotation about an Euler pole located in northern Africa. Both data sets show a more complicated setting. South of the North Anatolia Fault (NAF) the plate motion of Anatolia relative to Europe can be adequately described by a simple rigid body rotation with a dominant East-West component and an average velocity of ~22 mm/yr. However, both types of data show a significant increase of the deformation velocities in the Aegean area (30--35 mm/yr) and exhibit a much larger N-S component (up to 20 mm/yr) than the one predicted from rigid body rotation. This deformation pattern is more consistent with models which consider the Aegean as a separate microplate. ¿ 1999 American Geophysical Union