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Linkage Politics: the Role of the European Community in Greek Politics in 1973*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Susannah Verney  and
Panos Tsakaloyannis
Susannah Verney
Affiliation:
Kings College, London
Panos Tsakaloyannis
Affiliation:
European Institute of Public Administration, Maastricht
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Extract

The convulsions which began to shake the Greek military regime with the first student protests at the end of 1972 and which reached their climax in 1973 with the uprising at the Polytechnic in November, have been exhaustively analysed and discussed. However, they have always been viewed either through the prism of internal political developments or in the light of events in Cyprus. The international context remains largely unexplored.

The only element which has been taken into account is the ‘American factor’, yet the reasons for the change in American policy towards the regime in the Autumn of 1973 have not been sufficiently analysed. Such testimony as we have comes from representatives of the Greek or American governments. Spyros Markezinis, the junta’s civilian Prime Minister, attributes the fall of his government to the war in the Middle East. Certainly, Kissinger in his memoirs does not conceal his displeasure at the junta’s refusal to facilitate the transportation of war materiel to Israel at the most critical phase of the Arab-Israeli War in the Autumn of 1973.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 10 , 1986 , pp. 179 - 194
Copyright
Copyright ©The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1986

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References

1. Markezinis, Spyros, Anamniseis 1972–1974 (Athens 1979) 468–478.Google Scholar

2. Kissinger, Henry, Years of Upheaval (Boston, Toronto 1972) 708–709.Google Scholar

3. The literature on this particular issue is rather sparse. Those works which are available cover the whole period of the dictatorship and concentrate on the freezing of the Association Agreement. The best study available in English is still Yannopoulos, George N., Greece and the European Communities: The First Decade of a Troubled Association (Sage Research Paper, Berkeley Hills and London 1975)Google Scholar. See also the descriptive article by Confoudakis, Van, ‘The European Economic Community and the ‘Freezing’ of the Greek Association’, Journal of Common Market Studies (1977).Google Scholar

4. Leigh, Michael, ‘Linkage Politics: The French Referendum and the Paris Summit of 1972’, Journal of Common Market Studies 16/2 (1975) 158.Google Scholar

5. For an analysis of the EC’s formulation of Mediterranean policy in the early 1970s, see Schlaim, Avi and Yannopoulos, G.N. (eds), The EEC and the Mediterranean Countries (Cambridge 1976).Google Scholar

6. Commission Press Release (Brussels 12th May 1972) Files of EEC Press and Information Office, London.

7. Senator Mansfield’s resolution in 1971, calling for a total withdrawal of American troops from Europe, had caused consternation.

8. All figures based on information supplied by the National Statistical Service of Greece.

9. On the junta’s foreign policy initiatives, see Xydis, A.G., ‘The Military Regime’s Foreign Policy,’ in Clogg, R. and Yannopoulos, G. N. (eds.), Greece Under Military Rule (London 1972) 191–210.Google Scholar

10. The most complete work on the domestic politics of the Six at that time and on the question of Britain’s entry is Bodenheimer, Susanne J., Political Union: A Microcosm of European Politics 1960–66 (Leyden 1967).Google Scholar

11. This and following quotations from European Political Cooperation (EPC) (Bonn 1982). Their translation leaves something to be desired.

12. Akropolis (17 December 1972).

13. To Vima (19 January 1973).

14. European Political Cooperation, op. cit.

15. Europe (18–19 September 1972).

16. To Vima (19 January 1973).

17. To Vima (8 November 1973).

18. See for example, To Vima (20 January 1972 and 20 May 1973).

19. Papandreou, Andreas G., Democracy at Gunpoint: The Greek Case (London 1972) 309.Google Scholar

20. International Conference for the Abolition of the Dictatorship in Greece (Paris March 1972), ‘Report of the PAK National Council’, PAK File, Archive of the Modern Greek Department, King’s College, London.

21. Democracy at Gunpoint, op. cit., 318.

22. Untitled pamphlet (1970), PAK File, King’s College Archive.

23. ‘International Conference’ (March 1972), op. cit., PAK File.

24. Interview in Apoyevmatini (6 September 1973).

25. Exodos (5 February 1973).

26. Reprinted in Apo to PAK sto PASOK: Logoi, Arthra, Synentexeis, Diloseis tou Andrea Papandreou (Athens 1976) 21–22.

27. ‘Draft Aims of PAK’ (June 1971), PAK File, King’s College Archive.

28. Statement of 28th July 1973, reprinted in Apo to PAK sto PASOK, op. cit., 47.

29. See Bitsios, Dimitrios, PeraApo ta Synora 1974–77 (Athens, Estia 1982) 191–202.Google Scholar

30. Quoted in Lindsay, T.F. and Harrington, Michael, The Conservative Party 1918–1979 (London 1979) 214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. Proceedings of the Greek Parliament (12 April 1976) 5449.

32. Oikonomikos Tachydromos (22 February 1973). NB All translations from Greek are our own.