The Swing of the Pendulum: EU Narratives in Greece in a Time of Crisis

This chapter focuses on the transformation of EU narratives in Greece under conditions of crisis. In the 1990s, the pro-EU narrative established its hegemony, associating Europeanisation with modernisation. This converted Greece from a reluctant partner to a committed European. A political Union and a strong Europe were seen as important for Greece’s own prospects. Counter narratives insisting on ‘national independence’ in the 1980s became marginal in society and absent from official discourse. The experience of the economic crisis revived anti-EU attitudes. A renewed version of the old myth of ‘small Greece’ victim of the great powers gained momentum in society and politics. The Europeanisation-as-modernisation narrative declined, the right-left axis became blurred regarding EU, but a convergence on ‘more but different Europe’ became contingent as a transnational claim for a return to its founding principles.