The Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy: a critical appraisal

Abstract

This article presents a critique of the existing consensus in the academic literature of a successful, completed and visible Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy. It is argued that such a view should be qualified. First, at least three different dimensions to the Europeanisation of foreign policy are put forward. Second, Greece's membership is split into three successive periods (1981-1985, 1985-1995, and since 1996) and it is shown that only the first dimension of Europeanisation is visible -and this only in the most recent past (namely, since 1996). Therefore the Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy has still a long way to go before it is completed.

Foreign policy change in a polarized two-party system: Greece and Turkey’s EU candidacy

“…Early academic analyses of Simitis' foreign policy stressed the inherent strength of Europeanization in providing policy solutions and prescribing a vision of a liberal international order within which reconceptualized Greek national interests would be served (Ioakimidis 2000;Keridis 2001). A more sanguine account can be found in Tsardanidis and Stavridis (2005), who see Europe as an arena where Greece can promote effectively its goals rather than as a source for change of Greek policy. 2 International relations literature pointed to the fact that Greek foreign policy change was a response to wider changes in the region after the end of the Cold War (Ifantis 2004).…”

Development Cooperation of the ‘New’ EU Member States

“…There has been a growing literature on the shallow Europeanization in various policy fields (Chiva, 2009;Czernielewska et al, 2004;Sedelmeier, 2006) and this idea has been also claimed specifically for Slovak development cooperation (Vittek & Lightfoot, 2009). Not only has there been resistance to Europeanization among the 'new' Member States, but also Greece and Spain show this pattern as especially the Greeks focus on their neighbourhood rather than regions targeted by the EU, just as the 'new' Member States do (Tsardanidis & Stavridis, 2005, p. 220 in Horký, 2012a. 4 However, we should speak about Europeanization with caution since there are important policy documents and also policy actions and institutional influences outside the EU, especially within the OECD.…”

Dimensions and Mechanisms of the Europeanization of Member State Foreign Policy: State of the Art and New Research Avenues

“…As in other Europeanization studies, a distinction between a bottom-up and a top-down dimension of Europeanization of foreign policy has been made, distinguishing between (1) the uploading of national foreign policy preferences to the European level and (2) the downloading of EU foreign policy to the national level (Major and Pomorska 2005;Tsardanidis and Stavridis 2005;Wong 2005). 2 However, previous conceptualizations of the Europeanization of foreign policy do not provide a clear distinction between the dimensions of Europeanization, the mechanisms that drive it, and the respective outcomes, and this section sets out to further clarify these concepts (see Table 1).…”