The Odd Duck: Why Greece’s Foreign Policy Will Not Turn Out to Be a Swan!

Abstract

On November 11, 2015, the new prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras, visited for the first time his Turkish counterpart in Ankara. Αccording to Deutsche Welle, the Greek Prime Minister made efforts to herald a new closer and friendlier relationship with Turkey, which incidentally is a key state in the global immigration crisis (Deutsche Welle, Greek Prime Minister Tsipras makes rare visit to Turkey over migrant crisis. http://www.dw.com/en/greek-pm-tsipras-makes-rare-visit-to-turkey-over-migrant-crisis/a-18857805; 2015). The day of his visit, Tsipras penned an op-ed in government-friendly Turkish Daily Sabah in which he highlighted three main themes for his visit: (a) security, as the visit came right after the attacks in Paris in November of 2015, but also regional security between Greece and Turkey; (b) the refugee/immigrant crisis that is a key political issue for most of Europe; and (c) economic development, that is trade (Daily Sabah, 15 November 2015). The meeting turned out to be an unmitigated disaster for the Greeks, and a wave of criticism swept through the Greek dailies (Ekathimerini http://www.ekathimerini.com/203561/article/ekathimerini/news/tsipras-davutoglu-agree-to-improve-coordination-on-refugees, To Vima, english, http://www.tovima.gr/en/article/?aid=755237). Tsipras’s return to Athens was accompanied by a variety of criticisms, which he choose to address by taking a rather amateurish stab at his Turkish counterpart on social media. This spectacularly backfired (Washington Post, 30 November 2015).