Pagoulatos, George, (2012), “Desperately hanging on in Greece”, Walton, N., Zielonka, J., (eds)The New Political Geography of Europe, ECFR.
The current Greek debate over Europe is inescapably related to its traumatic experience at the epicentre of the crisis. Since 2010 the country has had to deal with sky-high interest rates, severe recession, harsh austerity, structural reform, and the indignity of emergency injections of cash to keep it solvent. Many Greeks, who had seen membership of the EU as a factor in socioeconomic progress, now blame elements of Europe for much of what they face. New political movements such as Syriza have capitalised on this discontent. However, the most negative – even catastrophic – scenarios involving Greece remain unlikely, provided conditions allow the fundamentally pro-European sentiments of the majority of Greeks to reassert themselves. Despite disquiet about their current predicament, Greeks believe that the current crisis cannot only be solved in Greece alone. And their continued faith in a solution to both their own crisis and the systemic crisis of the eurozone itself is crucial for the continuation of the entire project of European integration.