{"id":32819,"date":"2024-04-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eliamep.lncdoo.com\/activity\/peninta-chronia-metapolitefsis-giname-evropi-loukas-tsoukalis\/"},"modified":"2024-04-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T21:00:00","slug":"peninta-chronia-metapolitefsis-giname-evropi-loukas-tsoukalis","status":"publish","type":"activity","link":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/activity\/peninta-chronia-metapolitefsis-giname-evropi-loukas-tsoukalis\/","title":{"rendered":"50 Years from the Restoration of Democracy in Greece: Have we become Europe? – Loukas Tsoukalis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The President of ELIAMEP, Professor Loukas Tsoukalis, was invited, along with the journalist George Kouvaras, to the Cultural Talks<\/em> series addressing “50 Years from the Restoration of Democracy in Greece: Have we become Europe?” <\/em>staged by the Bank of Greece on 28 March 2024.<\/p>\n

Professor Tsoukalis spoke about the contradictions of contemporary Greece, a country that is home to a cosmopolitan elite, a Balkan state and an inward-looking hinterland, a few super rich and large economic inequalities. In Greece, the President of ELIAMEP noted, we have individuals far more than we do institutions, and a highly centralized system of political power that struggles to deal effectively with organized economic interests.<\/p>\n

Still, democracy in Greece is firmly established and withstood the economic crisis. But the quality of our democracy still leaves considerable room for improvement: the system of institutional checks and balances is weak and social capital anything but robust. And while, in foreign policy and the country’s European policy in particular, there is now a broad bipartisan consensus on key issues from which only the political extremes abstain, it is a “guilty” consensus that dares not speak its name. Because ‘consensus’ and ‘compromise’ are dirty words in the Greek political vocabulary.<\/p>\n

Economically, we have been overtaken by a number of European countries who were a long way behind just a few decades ago. The big economic crisis left a strong negative imprint. Populism and an inward-looking, uncompetitive economy have led the country into successive crises. And our creditors’ obsessive insistence on austerity during the most recent crisis certainly didn’t help the situation.<\/p>\n

For the vast majority of our compatriots, Greece is an integral part of Europe, a Europe that has changed a lot along the way and is currently faced with existential challenges. We want a strong Europe with a geopolitical role, but we must be ready to make a genuine contribution in this direction. There can be no European foreign policy with national vetoes.<\/p>\n

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