The EU’s Impact on the Greek Welfare State: Europeanization on Paper?

Abstract

For the past 25 years in Greece, welfare-state reforms have been the result of the interplay between domestic politics and European influences. While pension reform has been aborted, some targeted and smallscale reforms have proven more successful. Wholesale changes of the welfare system have met with strong resistance from private interests and bureaucratic mechanisms. The EU’s impact has mostly been felt in the policies of employment, vocational training, regional development and, less so, social assistance. Other welfare-state reforms have remained mostly on paper. However, the Greek welfare regime is gradually undergoing a cognitive change, manifested in the diffusion of social rights, and has adopted EU-driven policy tools for consultation and decision making. Throughout, path dependence has interacted with reform dynamics, flowing from the country’s integration into the EU.

Can existing theories of health care reform explain the Greek case (1983—2001)?

“…The EU's impact has been felt in specific areas of public policy such as employment, vocational training and regional development. In other important policy fields such as education, health and old age pensions, institutional settings have enabled the main players self-interestedly to resist the impact of EU directives (Sotiropoulos, 2004a). This 'path-dependence' (Mahoney, 2000) is highlighted in Table 1 which summarizes the extent of change (1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001) against the objectives of successive reforms.…”

Origins of reform resistance and the Southern European regime

“…One symptom of clientelism is the privileged recruitment into the public sector. Political appointments after an election are of a very high number by international standards in Portugal, Spain and Greece (Sotiropoulos, 2004). In Greece, waves of appointments even took place after a re-organisation of the cabinet of the same government.…”

Reforming Welfare States

“…Patronage in public sector job offerings also relates to normal public sector jobs: Parties offer jobs to their voters in all four countries. In these recruitments competitive entrance requirements are bypassed (Sotiropoulos, 2004, Christodoulakis 2000, Graham 1986). Families also could substitute the lacking welfare state poverty reaction to some extent in the past (Matsaganis, 2003): they acted as redistributive system to the advantage of family members in need or provided social services like child, old age and sick care.…”