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The Greeks are Europe's new heroes
The Greeks are Europe's new heroes
Nobody thought the Greeks could do it. They stand up to Erdogan and keep the migrants away from the Europeans.
Adelheid Wölfl
19.09.2020, 7.08 p.m.
Nobody in Europe currently has to deal with more crises at the same time than the Greeks: Refugees on the Aegean Islands who live in misery but should not simply be sent on to Europe; a rabid Turkish neighbor who is looking for natural gas in the sea and wants to redraw the borders with military force; On top of all that, the corona pandemic, which also restricts everyday life of the Greeks and has crushed the first economic successes after the long debt crisis.
Nobody thought the Greeks could do it: They master all these crises more or less well. It is Greece that is countering Turkey's military threats, which are essentially aimed at the entire EU.
And it is Athens that also fends off the blackmail attempts by the Turkish head of state Tayyip Erdogan, who wanted to direct the flow of refugees to Europe.
Even after the fire in Moria, Athens is holding on to the refugee camps on the Aegean islands. Greece is building fortress Europe. Since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, it has not militarized its land and water borders as much as it does now.
"Greece is at the center of two crises between the EU and Turkey - a geopolitical ping-pong on issues of migration and energy supply", is how the Athens communications strategist Takis Karagiannis outlines the situation. This has also changed Greece's role for the EU.
While Athens and Brussels blamed each other for the euro crisis ten years ago, nobody now blames Greece for anything. Athens should rather get the chestnuts out of the fire.
Above all, the tough stance of the conservative government under Kyriakos Mitsotakis towards the refugee storm staged by Erdogan on the border last February has strengthened Greece's image in the EU.
Criticism of illegal rejections at sea or of the death of a migrant on the Evros, who was apparently hit by a rubber bullet by the Greek border guards, can only be heard from European parliamentarians or civil society.
Government officials in the EU themselves are silent. The inhumane conditions in the camps on the islands are likely to be lamented. But the outrage is feigned to some extent. There is a silent agreement that the camps must be so miserable that they deter migrants from crossing. The Greeks take care of it.
The defense shield
A few years ago the Greeks were “the patient of Europe”, but now they are the defense shield against Erdogan and the migrants. The derogatory headlines in the German "Bild" newspaper at the height of the debt crisis - "You don't Greek anything from us" or "Sell your islands, you broke Greeks!" - now read like from a distant, different time.
Today, Greece is one of the most committed members of the EU and the euro zone, says George Pagoulatos, professor at the Athens University of Economics and Director of the Eliamep think tank. Despite drastic austerity measures and reforms, society has not become radicalized, and the vast majority of members of parliament are pro-European.
Despite the pandemic-induced recession, the markets seem to have confidence in the government, as the interest on bonds is lower than ever. Despite very turbulent times, Greece exudes a certain stability.
During the pandemic, the population showed a surprising amount of perseverance and discipline, even if the number of infected people is increasing now, as is everywhere in Europe. "A well-organized state has set up against the virus here," said Prime Minister Mitsotakis confidently.
But even the previous left-wing government under Alexis Tsipras had a positive surprise in the EU; on the one hand because it implemented the austerity requirements with greater rigor, and on the other hand because of the Prespa Agreement with North Macedonia.
In 2018, this not only ended the name dispute, which seemed bizarre to Europeans, but also showed for the first time that Greece can play a constructive role in Southeastern Europe. The image of the Greeks as backward-looking nationalists changed to that of their friendly neighbors.
Greece's new popularity in the EU is almost reminiscent of the enthusiasm of the 19th century. When the violence between the Greek insurgents and the Ottoman authorities escalated in 1821, philhellenic associations were founded across Europe from England to Russia, in Switzerland and in Italy.
Eugčne Delacroix painted Greece as a desperate woman in tattered clothes. The willingness to support the Greeks with money and the military spread across Europe. However, many travelers to Greece returned disappointed. They did not get to know a noble liberation struggle, but brutal massacres.
Brussels moves
But that's how it is with philhelleny. What Europeans are looking for and believing to recognize in Greece often falls back on themselves. Georgios Kalpadakis, Politics Professor at the Academy of Athens, put it this way: The contradictions on which the European project itself is based have shown themselves in the history of Greece.
The Greek civil war from 1944 onwards gave an indication of how deep the Cold War would split the continent. The military dictatorship in the 1960s and early 1970s showed how fragile democracy was in Europe. Greece's debt crisis from 2009 onwards showed how inadequately a European currency union functioned without a common fiscal policy of the member states.
Greece's new role as a useful helper and protective shield for Europeans is already having an impact. The confrontation with Turkey brings Europeans closer together. The common foreign and defense policy could now be revived.
The same can be said of asylum and migration policy. Since the fire in Moria, the pressure on Europeans has grown to show solidarity with the Greeks in managing the refugee crisis. On Wednesday the EU Commission will present its proposal for a new version of the asylum rules.
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Originally Posted by catgeorge
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