southeastern europe

a note on the May 6, 2012 Greek elections appeared in Diplomaatia Elections in Greece by Spyros A.Sofos Instead of the traditional left-right division, Greek political landscape is increasingly divided according to the parties’ attitudes towards austerity measures. On May 6, just less than six months after the coalition government of technocrat Lucas Papademos succeeded that of beleaguered prime minister George Papandreou in order to initiate the reforms agreed at the Eurozone summit on October 26, 2011, Greek voters went to the polls to elect a new parliament and government against a rather gloomy backdrop. The path to the polls The sovereign debt crisis had exacerbated the contraction of the economy and the increase of unemployment (now affecting one in every three young people). The desperate attempts of the last Panhellenic Socialist Movement  (PASOK) and the subsequent tripartite coalition government to raise revenues through hastily concocted tax,

Recent developments – particularly a proposal to recognize Macedonia as the ‘Republic of Vardar Macedonia’ - have demonstrated that, contrary to the fears of some, the debt crisis will not impede Greece’s capacity for resolving regional disputes. appearing in transconflict.com By Spyros Sofos Commentators have recently been  expressing concerns over the impact that the Greek debt crisis will have on the ability of the country to play an active role in resolving a number of outstanding issues in its relationship with neighbouring countries. It is quite true that Greece may be distracted by the magnitude of the task of economic restructuring in hand. It is also not unreasonable to assume that the embattled PASOK government might not be willing to open any new fronts by taking foreign policy initiatives that its opponents may consider or represent as undermining the country’s national interests. Against this backdrop last month’s visit to Athens by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan