ELIAMEP’s South-East Europe Programme has implemented this very ambitious study with the support of Eurobank. Fuelled by Greece’s extreme economic melt-down, this study’s intention is to bring into the limelight the possible repercussions of this unique situation on the country’s standing in the region. The first step was to map Greece’s previous status in the region in political/diplomatic and economic terms. This was achieved by conducting interviews and running an online survey that was addressed to policy makers across the region, in order to collect comparable responses between the pre-crisis period and the period during the crisis. At a second level we attempted to explore the developments in economic relations between Greece and the other Balkan states, focussing especially on issues of trade and investment, in order to compare past trends with those of the current period.
The present report presents the findings of an extensive research based on the above mentioned steps. The results of the online survey are presented in a specific section of the report, while the second part is completely devoted to Greece’s economic relations with the Balkan countries, to the evolution and composition of trade and the Greek investments in the region.
Authors: Dr. Ritsa Panagiotou & Mr. Anastasios I. Valvis