Griekenland door een Atheense bril: vroeger, nu en straks

In this article Marc Van den Reeck, Belgium’s former ambassador to Greece, gives an overview of the history of modern Greece from the perspective of Athens. First, he sketches out how Athens developed from a small city in the 19th century into the city of millions that it is today covering the period from the explosive population growth in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War (1919 – 1922) to the influx of people from the rural areas later in the 20th century. He then describes the country’s political reorientation from the Balkans to Europe as Greece became the tenth member of the European Economic Community in 1981, a few years after the collapse of the Greek military junta. This membership introduced the country into the new European reality of a single market where people, money, goods and services move freely. Even though Greece’s governmental infrastructure had some difficulties adapting to this new reality, the country did experience a significant economic growth, in part helped on by the development of tourism. This growth came to an abrupt end with the financial crisis of 2008, a crisis that had been predicted by economists pointing to the government’s overspending, its heavy and far-reaching involvement in the economy and the existence of excessive consumer credit. The structural reforms that were needed to resolve the crisis were the result of difficult negotiations between Greece and its European partners and caused a lot of resistance among large parts of the population until at least 2011. After ten years of crisis Greece’s gross domestic product had declined to the level of 2000. Nevertheless, even though many people lost a large part of their income, the Greeks’ solidarity left few people without a safety net to fall back on. In addition, the country has reaffirmed its position within the Eurozone and the European Union, an outcome that would have been difficult to imagine only a few decades ago.