What Future for Greece?

Abstract

In some ways this is perhaps the most important chapter of this book. Even though Greece’s on-going economic and social crisis (analysed in the previous chapters) is serious enough, it is her problems with Turkey which may precipitate the overall crisis which will force Greece, finally, to confront her ‘backsliding’ in a creative and resolute manner. Those problems are exacerbated by current Western foreign policy thinking that Turkey is very important strategically to the West.¹ They also determine the context in which Greece must attempt her economic recovery as well as the dire urgency of the task. In a broader but no less compelling sense the post-Cold War international environment is an interesting set of opportunities and threats: on the one hand the Balkans and the ex-USSR are opening up to world trade and private investment; on the other Greece’s foreign policy options currently appear to be circumscribed by Russia’s weakness and the West’s supremacy, while the twin processes of Emu in Europe and of global economic deregulation put her already weak economy under severe pressure to perform better or else.

‘Blessed be he who expecteth the worst, for verily he shall ne’er be disappointed’

L. Sprague de Camp, The Unbeheaded King