Verney, S. & Michalaki, S., “Greece”, in Conti, N. (ed.) (2014) “Party Attitudes towards the EU in the Member States – Parties for Europe, Parties against Europe“, Routledge Advances in European Politics, Routledge Publications: United Kingdom.
Between the Maastricht Treaty and the eurozone crisis, the central question in the Greek European debate was no longer ‘to be or not to be in the EU’ but ‘what kind of Europe’. The analysis of Euro-election manifestos (1994-2009) investigates the salience of European integration in party competition strategies and party positions on issues of identity, representation and scope of governance in the EU. Three theoretical predictions are tested: that government incumbents, the party system core and the right will be more integration-supportive than opposition, peripheral and left-wing parties respectively. The findings, often confounding expectations, include the lower salience of integration for the two parties of power, the generally negative assessment of current EU democracy and a majority preference for supranational decision-making. The fundamental distinction lay between supporters and opponents of deepening, where a broad consensus favouring further integration reveals the pre-crisis party system as overwhelmingly pro-European.
Relevant posts:
- Verney, S. (2014) “Broken and Can’t be Fixed’: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Greek Party System”, The International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs, Volume 49, Issue 1, 2014.
- McDonnell, D. (2014) “The rise of Euroscepticism across Europe has masked general apathy about the European elections among voters“, LSE EUROPP, 29 April.
- Vasilopoulou, S., Halikiopoulou, D. & Exadaktylos, T. (2014), “Greece in Crisis: Austerity, Populism and the Politics of Blame“, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 52: 388–402.