Greece: The Remarkable Defeat of Euroscepticism

Abstract

Greece emerged from the July 2019 national elections with one of the most stable, pro-European Union (EU) and moderate party systems in the EU. This is remarkable given the depth, duration and debilitating socioeconomic legacy of the country’s Great Recession. During 2008–2016 Greece lost a quarter of its GDP, unemployment peaked at 27 percent. Yet, following the elections of July 2019, four out of six parties represented in Parliament (entry threshold at 3 percent) are committed to Greece’s participation in the European institutions and the euro: centre-right ND (158 seats), left-wing SYRIZA (86), socialist KINAL (formerly known as PASOK) (22), and left-wing MERA25 (9). All four of these parties (which add up to 275/300 seats) strongly support Greece’s European vocation, though at least two of them (SYRIZA and MERA25) and have been highly critical of certain EU policies, especially regarding the eurozone.