Recasting Greek Industrial Relations: Internal Devaluation in Light of the Economic Crisis and European Integration

Abstract

In the current financial and debt crisis, the joint EC-ECB-IMF Programmes for Greece directly impact on national industrial relations. They are an in vivo feasibility test for a process of internal devaluation in the Eurozone. They test attitudes towards the EU response to the crisis through European Union (EU)/ International Monetary Fund (IMF)-sanctioned deregulation of employment and collective bargaining rights at national level. This paper analyses how the joint EC-ECB-IMF Programmes for Greece recast the system towards highly decentralized collective bargaining, in what may initially appear to be 'a unique and exceptional' case. The paper examines how the radical changes introduced by the joint EC-ECB-IMF Programmes for Greece since 2010, that find their legal basis in the Excessive Deficit Procedures of the Treaty, denote future directions of European integration for national systems of industrial relations under the Euro Plus Pact (EPP). An assessment is made of the impact of European integration on national industrial relations, considering whether the long and painful process of internal devaluation in Greece will reshape societal attitudes towards the EU and the Eurozone, resulting in profound Euroscepticism.