ELIAMEP

The new book of Loukas Tsoukalis: In Defense of Europe. Can the European project be saved? is published by Oxford University Press. Europe has not been so weak and divided for a long time. Buffeted by a succession of crises, it has shown a strong collective survival instinct but a poor capacity to deliver. Loukas Tsoukalis is critical of the way Europe has handled its multiple crises in recent years. He addresses the key issues and difficult choices facing Europe today.

In particular:

- Can Europe hold together? Under what terms? And for what purpose?

- A look at the key choices facing Europe today, by a leading political economist and former special adviser to the President of the European Commission

- Explains how the international financial crisis has become an existential crisis of European integration

- Asks whether Europe can ovecome the basic contradiction of a currency without a state

- Looks at how the European Union can accommodate greater internal diversity – and thereby hope to avoid a Brexit or a Grexit

- Examines whether there is an irreconcilable contradiction between Europe’s yearning for soft power and the hard realities of the world outside

Book Reviews

‘An inexorable analysis. An eye opener, a heart cry from a true European’ - Herman van Rompuy, former President of the European Council

‘A deeply insightful book that illuminates how only a combination of skill and passion can save Europe’ – Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister of Italy

‘The European project has traditionally been driven by the region’s political, business and technocratic elites, with ordinary people indifferent and often hostile to it, even as benficiaries. This clear-sighted, non-idelogical book shows how this has to change for the project to survive. Tsoukalis argues Europe needs a wide range of reforms that deepens integration in some areas, while allowing for greater differentiation and democratic decision-making in others. He eschews simple solutions and magic pills. It is the book’s great virtue that is clarifies both the scale of the problem and some of the ways forward’ – Dani Rodrik,  Harvard Kennedy School

‘This is an important and enlightening book in which one of the most knowledgeable scholars of European integration takes a hard look at what has has gone wrong over the last quarter century. Though deeply committed to the success of the European project, the author’s account of present European crises is characterized not only by an unflinching realism but also by the masterly integration of economic and political analyses – and by the perceptive reconstruction of the conflicting interests and (mis-) perceptions that explain German, British and Greek contributions to present policy failures. Remarkably, nevertheless, the book ends neither in a counsel of despair nor in idealistic precepts but in a series of pragmatic proposals whose usefulness is not obviously in conflict with political feasibility’ – Fritz W. Scharpf, Max Planck Institute

‘As ever thoughtful and thought-provoking, Loukas Tsoukalis prompts us to re-examine the fundamentals of contemporary European integration. His deep analysis is timely, nuanced and challenging’ - Dame Helen Wallace FBA, British Academy

You can find here more information on the book.

In the eyes of Greeks the meaning of Social Europe has changed over time, spanning the range from funds to promote social cohesion to externally enforced welfare state reforms in an austerity context. To the extent Greeks became familiar with Social Europe, they never took it to heart but would admit that they have periodically benefited from Social Europe’s tangible outlays, such as the European Structural Funds. Nowadays the Greek experience of a protracted economic crisis and a sudden refugee crisis can contribute towards rethinking Social Europe.

Welcome and unwelcome aspects of Social Europe

In pre-crisis Greece, Social Europe used to mean a welcome invitation to make Greece’s living standards converge with those of the rest of the EU. It also meant a less welcome push to introduce into Greece labour market and pension reforms, which would alter a patronage-based divide between insiders and outsiders.

European social policies, including active labor market policies and flexicurity, were alien in Greek society. Social Europe was not received well in a society in which many thought that they were entitled to a stable job and welfare benefits, dispensed by the state, by virtue of belonging to a group treated differently from other groups.

Examples of insider groups included civil servants, bank employees, journalists and the liberal professions. The majority of the rest were outsiders. An insider-outsider division has been the result of a particular historical legacy of state-society relations.

Social equity Greek style

Greeks hold complicated views on social equity. On the one hand they entertain egalitarian ideas as, in contrast to other European societies, there has never been an influential landed aristocracy in the Greece, while heavy industrialization was mostly absent from the country’s path to development.

On the other hand, Greeks often show more social solidarity with the narrow occupational group to which they belong rather than with the weaker social strata in general. While most Greeks reject any kind of social privilege, they simultaneously adhere to tailor-made, occupation-based privileges, such as rights to early retirement available to selected groups or preferential access to public sector jobs through political party patronage.

Social Europe after the crisis: from entitlement to austerity

After the crisis struck, the EU-imposed fiscal consolidation of the Greek economy led to the expansion of poverty, soaring unemployment and a deeper insider-outsider division between Greeks who have been relatively untouched by the crisis and their co-patriots who have been economically destroyed by it.

The economic crisis was very quickly transformed into a social crisis. Social Europe was flushed out of Greece along with the bathwater of relatively generous pensions, incommensurate to past insurance contributions, and wages standing higher than productivity levels.

Meanwhile, successive Greek governments fought to support their political clienteles by preventing substantive reforms in the aforementioned highly discriminatory welfare system, which pits insiders against outsiders. This is a fight that continues to this day. Thus, in crisis-ridden Greece, Social Europe has been associated, not so much with the rationalization of the welfare state, as with deep social spending cuts.

Rethinking Social Europe

However, as soon as the refugee crisis broke out in 2015 and hundreds of thousands of desperate people landed on Greek islands, Greeks rushed to offer help. Noticing the glaring absence of central state authorities, Greeks started pouring clothes, shoes, food and medicines on to incoming waves of refugees. Suddenly for Greeks, who during the crisis had taken Social Europe to mean indiscriminate austerity measures, being a European now meant sharing one’s own reduced resources with non-Europeans emerging from the sea.

Seeing a real humanitarian crisis from close by, Greeks have started putting Greek and European politics in perspective. In 2015 populist promises that other Europeans would rally around an anti-austerity Greek and South European vision to reshape Social Europe have evaporated. Pre-electoral claims that all that was necessary for Greeks to enjoy pre-crisis living conditions was to banish the EU-imposed austerity packages have contributed to the government turnover of 2015, but have soon proven futile. Almost every Greek has realized that a patronage-based system of welfare is normatively indefensible and financially unsustainable.

Distrust and dissatisfaction with the EU

But the fact that unfettered and one-size-fits-all austerity can rapidly lead an once relatively prosperous EU Member-State, such as Greece, to acute social crisis, has indicated how fragile Social Europe has become as well.

On this issue, the governing coalition of Syriza party with the right-wing Independent Greeks party, which has been in power since January 2015, believes that in the past Social Europe spelled the undermining, rather than the protection, of workers’ rights, for example, through introducing unacceptable flexibility in labour relations.

Finally, the coalition of Syriza would like to see more flexibility in the Stability and Growth Pact’s rules and the abandonment of Fiscal Compact, so as to allow national governments in Member States to follow expansionist economic policies. Simultaneously the radical left/right coalition distrusts the strengthening of decision-making powers of EU’core, including a stronger EU budget. Yet Syriza does call for an EU-wide increase in public investment.

Source: Clingendael

Author: Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos

ELIAMEP Working Paper 75/2016 written by Georgios Kolyvas analyses the future of the eurozone. In particular, it argues that more integration is feasible  on the basis of the experience gained in previous years. In addition, it is proposed for Greece to set up its own growth plan which will help the country to proceed towards its recovery beyond the third bailout programme.

Working Paper 75/2016: The eurozone on the way of more integration (in French).

Author: Georgios Kolyvas

Briefing Note 44/2016 of ELIAMEP’s South East Europe Programme analyses the key parameters of  the EU decision to abolish the visa regime for Kosovars travelling to EU countries. This development can be seen as an important step in Kosovo’s efforts to come closer and eventually integrate in the EU.

You can read here the article on reactions within the Greek society, which was written by Professor George Pagoulatos. The commentary was published on 12 June 2016  in the Sunday edition of Kathimerini and is available in Greek.

President of ELIAMEP, Professor Loukas Tsoukalis wrote an article in the Sunday edition of Kathimerini about the Greek crisis. This article was published on 5 June 2016 and is available here (in Greek).

President of ELIAMEP, Professor Loukas Tsoukalis wrote an op-ed in El Pais on the future of Europe. This op-ed was published on 2 June 2016 and is available here (in Spanish).

On 31 May 2016 the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)  in collaboration with the Embassy of Australia in Greece organised a discussion with Mr John Griffin, Ambassador of the Australian Embassy in Athens. Ambassador Griffin spoke on ‘Why Asia is of growing importance for Europe’. The event took place at  the Representation of European Commission in Greece. Director General of ELIAMEP Dr Thanos Dokos was the moderator and Dr George Tzogopoulos made comments. The speech of Ambassador Griffin and the discussion which followed were synthesised around the strategic, economic and cultural aspects which can bring Asia and Europe closer. Emphasis was put on the current challenges and the importance of international cooperation to better deal with them.

You can read here the article on potential cooperation schemes in the Eastern Mediterranean, which was written by Director General of ELIAMEP Dr Thanos Dokos. This commentary was published in the Greek daily Kathimerini on 1 June 2016 [in Greek].

Research Fellow of ELIAMEP Dr. Angeliki Dimitriadi contributed to the research on the Implementation of the Common European Asylum System. The research, commissioned by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament is available to download here.

Director General of ELIAMEP Dr Thanos Dokos gave an interview on Huffington Post  analysing relations between Greece and Russia. You can read here the article (in Greek).

ELIAMEP Researchers Dr Angeliki Dimitriadi and Assistsnt Professor Panagiota Manoli pacticipated in the kick-off Conference of the FEUTURE project (The future of EU-Turkey relations: Mapping dynamics and testing scenarios) which was hosted by Bilgi University (Istanbul) on 26 and 27 May 2016. You can find here more information.

On Wednesday 8 June 2016, the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) will organise the public debate: ‘The future of the EU and Greece: Challenges and Perspectives’. The event will take place in Aegli Zappeiou (Olympia Hall) in the context of the New Pact for Europe Programme.  Its working language will be Greek. More information is available on the Greek version of our website.

Director General of ELIAMEP Dr Thanos Dokos gave an interview on Deutsche Welle analysing the visit of President Vladimir Putin in Greece. You can read here the article (in Greek).

Less than a year ago, the Greek crisis reached its highest level of tension. After arduous negotiations, the Greek government and its creditors signed the agreement for a third bailout in July 2015,which should provide liquidity to the Greek public sector in return for a severe programme of deficit adjustment and structural reforms. At the time of finalising this edited volume, the spectre of Grexit seems much less likely, although not yet impossible (especially if there is Brexit). After six years of painful austerity and the adoption of a number of structural reforms, the original sins of the Greek economy, the structural governance deficits of the eurozone and the imbalances between the European economies remain almost unchanged. The crisis that dominated the European debate in the summer of 2015 changed the perception of Greece and the EU for good.

The contents of this monograph aim at providing a comprehensive view on the changing landscape of both Greek and European politics as a consequence of the eurozone crisis. It presents the results of a research workshop jointly organised by CIDOB and ELIAMEP on December 18th 2015, which departed from the following hypothesis: If the Greek crisis became the epicentre of the eurozone crisis and Europe’s economic and monetary downturn became an existential threat to the European project, then the consequences of the crisis should have transformed the behaviour of Greek authorities towards Europe and of the European authorities in facing the crisis. In other words, Greece and the EU should have adopted new visions reflecting both the transformation of the Greek political scene and the eurozone’s response to a systemic crisis.

INTRODUCTION
Pol Morillas and Thanos Dokos

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE OR AN ABSOLUTE BEGINNER? SYRIZA’S EUROPEAN POLICY CHOICES ON THE WAY TO GREECE’S 3rd BAILOUT PROGRAM
George Pagoulatos and Panagiotis Vlachos

AN OLD CRISIS, A NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE CREDITORS: “PLUS ÇA CHANGE PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE”?
Dimitris Katsikas

THE POLITICS OF SYRIZA IN EUROPE: FROM LEFT-WING RADICALISM TO POST-LEFT MANAGERIALISM
Filippa Chatzistavrou

THE GEOPOLITICAL DIMENSION OF THE GREEK CRISIS
Thanos Dokos

GREECE AND THE CRISIS: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Effie G. H. Pedaliu

EUROZONE GOVERNANCE AFTER GREECE: LESSONS LEARNED, LESSONS TO LEARN
Eleni Panagiotarea

EMU GOVERNANCE AND THE MEMBER STATES: LESSONS FROM FEDERATIONS AND OTHER COUNTRIES
Cinzia Alcidi

You can read here the article on the new prime minister of Turkey written by Research Fellow of ELIAMEP and Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Bilkent University, Dr. Ioannis N. Grigoriadis. This commentary was published in Kathimerini on 24 May 2016.

ELIAMEP Policy Paper 26/2016 deals with the Eastern Mediterranean in 2020. It is edited by Director General of the Foundation Dr Thanos Dokos. The policy paper employs scenarios and includes policy recommendations. Findings are based on a conference organised by ELIAMEP and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) in Athens on “The Eastern Mediterranean in 2020: Possible Scenarios and Policy Recommendations” . The conference was organised in cooperation with the EU Institute for Security Studies (EU-ISS) and with the support of NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division.

‘Greece currently has its hands full with a twin crisis − continuing economic turmoil and an escalating influx of refugees. Despite such intractable problems at home, however, the prospect of Britain’s exit from the EU attracts considerable interest and is a frequent topic of discussions between decision-makers and academics.

There are several reasons for this, not least the important historical, political and cultural ties between Greece and the UK. There is also the concern from the Greek perspective that Britain’s exit would break an entrenched European taboo.

The assumption has been for many years that the EU and its institutions would grow ever larger. A Brexit would show it was possible for the EU to actually shrink, establishing a dangerous precedent for a country still haunted by the threat of an imposed Grexit. Greece is also aware of the wider significance of losing Britain from the European club. Athens has always been among the strongest supporters of a common European foreign and security policy. To stabilize its neighborhood and to be taken seriously at the global level, the EU needs, in addition to its soft power, some hard power capabilities.

Britain and France are the only European countries with the capability to project such power. In addition, the UK carries along a first-rate diplomatic tradition and influence in various ‘interesting’ parts of the globe. In some of these places, other EU countries lack sufficient influence. A Brexit would strip the EU of important military and diplomatic capabilities and would weaken its ability to eventually develop a meaningful and effective foreign and security policy.

Britain’s departure would just be the first step in a long and complicated process of disengagement from the EU and its institutions. Its relationship with the rest of the Union would need to be redefined and that process would be neither easy nor quick. Scottish plans to leave the UK and join the EU would further complicate matters.

All this will be taking place at a time when the rest of the world, and especially powers such as Russia and China, but also the new US Administration, will not only be watching the EU’s performance but testing its cohesion and willingness to remain an influential regional and global player. This will serve the interests of neither the EU, nor the UK. Finally, ‘losing’ its second largest economy will not be in any way beneficial for the EU.

Even if the UK decides to stay, Eurosceptics will still be influential and its relationship with the EU will probably remain problematic. Facing serious challenges and with enough Eurosceptics already in Central and Eastern Europe, the Union hardly needs another one. Greece is also concerned that too many exemptions for any member state will weaken the Union.

At the end of the day, however, the thinking in Athens is that the EU would be better off fighting its battles and sorting out its differences with a difficult member state such as Britain inside the EU institutions rather than outside the Union’

Source: Chatham House

Director General of ELIAMEP Dr Thanos Dokos gave an interview on Euronews analysing the forthcoming visit of President Vladimir Putin in Greece. You can watch the video here.

You can read here the article on the objectives of Greek foreign policy, which was written by Director General of ELIAMEP Dr Thanos Dokos. This commentary was published in the Greek daily Kathimerini on 18 May2016 [in Greek].