THE PRO-EEC CONVERSION OF GREEK PUBLIC OPINION (1981–90)

Abstract

Greece became an EEC member in 1981, following a parliamentary vote in the then New Democracy (conservative)–controlled parliament. Opinion polls indicated though that were a referendum held at the time, membership would have been rejected, as the government had lost its popular support (and lost power in the course of that year) and an across-the-board anti-western majority had emerged in a country whose people's national identity was first defined during and as a defense against the crusades. Ten years later, there exists in Greece a very large consensus in favor of EEC membership which includes even the communist left, at least programmatically. The spectacular, and unprecedented among Community countries, pro-EEC conversion is the subject of this paper. First, using the European Commission's Eurobarometer and Eurodim's Helleno-barometer data, the evolution of Greek public opinion towards the EEC is documented. Secondly, the trend data in the various voting groups show that this conversion is basically the result of the transformation of the socialist electorate from anti-EEC to pro-EEC, but with a lag behind the similar change in the party's (PASOK) policies during its eight-year rule (1981–9). Thirdly, evidence is provided that anti-westernism has not died out in Greece, but that it has both mellowed and become ‘selective’. So, we conclude that the pro-EEC conversion was not the result of some general ‘Westernization’ of Greek public opinion, but the outcome of a ‘learning experience’: during their country's ten-year EEC membership, the Greeks discovered that the benefits from this international commitment far outweighed the costs. In fact, it is argued that the pro-EEC conversion of Greek public opinion has contributed to the mellowing of its anti-westernism: whereas the crusades were instrumental in cutting the Greeks from Europe, the EEC appears now the vehicle of their reintegration into a world in whose development they have historically played a major role.