Greece

Abstract

Greece was accepted as the tenth member of the European Union (then the European Community) in 1978 and joined on 1 January 1981. Greece had 25 MEPS, elected under a party-list system of proportional representation, until 2004, when the number was cut to 24. To accommodated further enlargement, its seats fell to 22 in 2009. Greece is a member of the eurozone and has ratified the Lisbon Treaty. It has striven to be included in the European ‘family’ from early on and made significant political and monetary changes to fulfil the criteria for adopting the euro, some of which have been severely criticised. The country’s cultural and geopolitical position at the crossroads between East and West, and currently at the EU’s South-Eastern border, has meant that the sense of belonging to both the Western European cluster of countries, which have largely determined the essence of the EU politically and administratively, and the broadly defined ‘East’, is ambivalent. There is a sense of European-ness in a way distinct from the rest of the EU, highlighted by distance until recent EU enlargements, while at the same time, there is a sense of ‘entitlement’ to being a vital part of ‘Europe’ cultivated through the arguments of historical continuity from ancient times. Whether these rather intangible, symbolic aspects of Greece’s place in Europe and the EU are manifested in concrete, measurable ways remains to be seen. However, EU membership has brought about support for structural regeneration, particularly on the periphery, and has accentuated the country’s position as a geographical crossroads between the EU as a destination and troubled third countries as departure points for ever-increasing waves of human, mostly forced, migration. Greece is seen as the ‘gateway to Europe’ and an intermediate station for undocumented migrants, who often find themselves caught in a limbo unable to establish themselves as citizens in the country or to move to their final destinations in other European countries. Politically, EU membership, especially early on, served to stabilise the political situation after two military coups (1940 and 1967) and a troubling internal conflict that turned to civil war in the post-war period, between the Left and the Right. It also served to strengthen Greece’s affiliation to the Western Europe (as opposed to the former Eastern Bloc).