A. Tsakona

In May 2010, the Greek government, for the first time in Greece’s modern history, asked the IMF for economic assistance. In exchange for by far the largest bailout ever assembled for a country, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announced further spending cuts and tax increases on top of tough measures already taken. The fierce economic crisis that hit Greece harder than any other European country, due to fiscal imbalances and low productivity, affected the feeling of security among Greek opinion leaders that participated in this survey. From the 16 respondents, the vast majority (11) said that they believed their country was less secure than five years ago, whereas only 4 felt their country was more secure. The major issue of concern was reported to be the Greek financial crisis, which could also diminish Greece’s bargaining power in foreign relations.

This research deals with the security concerns expressed by Greek opinion makers during the negotiations of the first IMF bailout (March-May 2010). This paper is divided in four parts. The first part deals with perceived threats and the security environment. The second part focuses on self perception and the role Greece plays in the international system. In the third part there is an analysis of Greece’s alliances and partners and in the fourth part great power relations are discussed. For the purpose of this research sixteen interviews were conducted with Greek opinion makers, namely politicians - including former Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Ministers of Defence - journalists, government officials and businessmen. In addition there was an analysis of the press and related bibliography.

Leonidas Gontzes

In October 1925, Greece carried out military operations in south-western Bulgaria following more than three decades of armed conflict with Macedonian Slavs which endangered the Macedonian Greeks’ very existence and threatened to erase some 4,000 years of Hellenic civilization in the region. The short-lived incursion is known as the 1925 Bulgarian Incident in which the League of Nations (LoN) found Greece guilty of violating Bulgaria’s sovereignty and was subsequently fined 30 million leva ($220,000). The purpose of this paper is to show that Greece was justified under the law of nations at the time as well as by current international law to take all necessary action to defend her people, her borders, and her sovereignty.

By Dr. Annaliza Tsakona

In December 2004, the European Council decided to start accession negotiations with Turkey. The decision was approved by the European Parliament with 407 Members voting in favour and 262 against. Accession negotiations started officially in October 2005. After almost half a century, the first agreement between Turkey and the then European Economic Community (EEC) was signed in 1963 - Turkey was officially on its way to the EU.

Asteris Huliaras &
Nikolaos Tzifakis

During the last decade, human security has made its way into policy discourses. According to the UNDP’s widely acknowledged approach, the term implies, on the one hand, safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease, and repression and, on the other, protection from sudden and harmful disruptions in the patterns of daily life whether in homes, jobs, or communities.
Human security denotes a multidimensional and holistic approach to security that is based on the conviction that problems such as human rights, development, and insecurity in conflict zones are strongly interrelated. The term is also characterized by its universalism as it reflects a concern with the security of every individual, irrespective of country or place of residence. More

International Journal | Summer 2007

Asteris C. Huliaras

A few months after the beginning of the Second World War, a book entitled The Balkans appeared in Japanese bookstores. It was written by Hitoshi Ashida, a Japanese diplomat who had served in Europe. After the war, Ashida turned to politics and became Prime Minister of Japan. The book focused on the policies of
the then Great Powers in the Balkans. For Ashida2—as well as for the Japanese public at the time—Japan was not a participant in Balkan politics, but a far-away observer. Fifty years later, the situation was different. In the early 1990s, the wars in Yugoslavia attracted the interest of Japan’s public and of its governing elite. In
contrast to the Ashida years, now Japan was not a geographically distant observer. Japan was a participant, one of the great powers involved in the region.
As the Japanese constitution imposes significant restrictions on external military engagements, aid is one of Japan’s main foreign policy tools. Not surprisingly, Japan was mainly involved in the Balkans as a donor. This paper attempts to examine this ‘soft’ involvement of one of the world’s leading economic powers in one of the world’s most conflict-ridden zones. More

Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans,
Volume 9, Number 1, April 2007