Greece in Europe

No. 11 October 2015 South East European Studies at Oxford The SEESOX Review Inside this issue: Greece in Europe Greece in Europe 1 audience the main tenets of his foreign policy. The Minister SEESOX News bites 2 focused on the geopolitical Letter from the Director 2 significance of Greece, at the centre of a triangle of Political Economy of 3 instability defined by Eastern South East Europe Ukraine, the Middle East and Max Watson 3 Libya and affecting the whole of Europe. Greece’s stability Visiting Fellows: 4 and external support were In their own words paramount for the stability of Europe, both despite and SEESOX on Greece: 6 Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Kotzias, delivering the SEESOX Annual Lecture Legacies and Challenges because of its economic malaise. The Minister responded At the start of 2015, Greece demoicracy based on the Bosnia and Herzegovina: 8 to questions on Greece’s again hit the headlines principle of mutual New International ability to address the new Thinking following the accession to recognition and respect for European challenges, including power of the radical left party small states. Anastasakis SEESOX Seminar Series: 10 current uncertainties in the SYRIZA, a first in Eurozone asked whether the Greek crisis Global South East Europe Balkans, the rising refugee crisis politics. SEESOX should be seen as an in a multi-polar world influx, Germany’s “economic followed these developments exception or as part of a wider colonisation” of Greece, Focus on regional politics 12 closely. We spoke in Athens in European malaise. relations with Russia and the June along with Timothy On 10 June, Greece’s SEESOX seminars and 14 voice of small states in Garton Ash on: Crisis in Foreign Minister Nikos conferences European foreign policy. The Europe and “how to get out of Kotzias, formerly visiting next day, the Minister Ambassadors’ Forum 16 it.” Garton Ash discussed the fellow at St Antony’s College, engaged with Oxford fellows causes of the crisis and called delivered the ESC/SEESOX SEESOX aspires... 16 in a brainstorming meeting on for a new narrative to bring Annual Lecture on Greek confidence building measures. back faith in the European foreign policy at a time of While Greece is still the ideal. Nicolaidis addressed the crisis, introducing to an region’s vortex, SEESOX’s need for a genuine European international academic The SEESOX Review mission continues to explore and report on developments EDITOR: in the whole of southeast Othon Anastasakis Europe. If Cyprus can serve as ASSISTANT EDITOR, our canary in the mine, we DESIGN AND TYPESET: hope that 2016 might be the Julie Adams year when Athens leads the way from the geopolitics of despair to the geopolitics of hope. Timothy Garton Ash, Kalypso Nicolaidis, Othon Anastasakis, Alexis Papahelas Othon Anastasakis and at Megaron Hall, Athens (In cooperation with the Institute for International Relations (IDIS), Athens) Kalypso Nicolaidis The SEESOX Review SEESOX News bites Jessie Hronesova, a highly University of Crete, he taught Stephen Horvath, an A- -valued member of the at the University of Level student at Westminster SEESOX team, who worked Peloponnese and was a fellow School, assisted SEESOX during hard on the conference and at Columbia and Princeton, the month of July with writing report on Bosnia, and co- among others. some excellent blogs, as well convened many thought- as contributing to this newsletter. provoking seminars, is Two new SEESOX books spending Fall Term at are soon to be published with Columbia University in New Palgrave Pivot-St Antony’s York as a visiting student. Well Series: Economic and Policy http://goo.gl/wh8nNH done, Jessie! Foundations for Growth in South East Europe: Rebuilding the Balkan Economy (October 2015) by Adam Bennet, Russell Kincaid, Peter Sanfey and Max SEESOX welcomed two Watson, and Balkan Legacies new junior associates last year, of the Great War: The Past is both MPhil students at DPIR: Never Dead (December 2015) Andrew Heinrich, who edited by Othon Anastasakis, contributed to our new Greek David Madden and Elizabeth The SEESOX/A.G. Leventis Diaspora project, as well as Roberts. SEESOX will launch visiting fellow for the outreach and networking; and the books in the New Year. academic year 2015-16 is Dr George Kailas, who (For more information, please Kostis Karpozilos. After contributed to our work on see panel on left for links to http://goo.gl/XpOa9c obtaining his Ph.D. from the Greece and other projects. websites). Letter from the Director Our region never ceases to attract attention and last year was no exception to the rule: the dramatic developments in Greece after the rise of SYRIZA in power, the increasing migratory waves from Syria through the Greek islands and the Western Balkans on the way to Europe, Bosnia’s political stalemate, security challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean, Russia’s active policy in the Balkans, and a fragile regional economic environment were among some of the themes that SEESOX addressed during the last academic year 2014/15. As usual, we have gone beyond the superficial and stereotypical understanding of issues, which is often prominent in the media and the public discourses, to the deeper appreciation of causes and outcomes. Our workshops and conferences on Bosnia-Herzegovina’s impasse, on Russia’s influence in the Balkans, on the state of Southern European social democracy, on the rise of social mobilisation and activism in South East Europe, on Bulgaria’s new government were some examples of SEESOX’s mission to explain, diagnose and, even, build scenarios for the future. This, we did, in some cases, in cooperation with other partners inside, and beyond, Oxford, in order to boost the quality and the impact of our projects. In addition, last year at SEESOX, we introduced a new important dimension to the study of the region, beyond the intra-regional and intra -European perspectives, which sees South East Europe as part of a changing global environment and a multi-polar world, entry point to Europe, where regional actors have some power and ownership in their choices and decision making but who also have to bear the impact of external pressures. In this spirit, our SEESOX seminar series, introduced such themes as regional geopolitics, economic links with other centres of power, energy linkages, migration challenges, the impact of diasporas, the influence of Islam, relations with Russia and China, and how these connect with the dominant paradigm of europeanisation. Seen from this global perspective, South East Europe gets the broad and comprehensive reading which it deserves. Once again, a brilliant team at SEESOX and our visiting scholars produced a very impressive, in quantity and quality, yearly programme which is presented in this newsletter. Othon Anastasakis, Director of SEESOX Page 2 October 2015 Political Economy of South East Europe “SEESOX continued to invite debate on Greece inevitably continued to converge to the EU average Meetings as a rare (if late) the plight of dominate political economy within two to three generations; success story amidst an countries in South discussions at SEESOX during post-crisis, with a much lower otherwise dispiriting East Europe, whether the course of the year. growth differential on current Eurozone performance. Beyond Greece, SEESOX trends, convergence to the EU Apart from seminars, in the EU, in the continued to invite debate on average will take a lifetime. political economy work at process of joining it, the plight of countries in In May 2015, SEESOX and SEESOX during 2014/15 was or still in the South East Europe, whether in PEFM co-hosted a seminar on concentrated on putting the EU, in the process of “Non-standard monetary accession queue.” together a book: Economic joining it, or still in the policy measures and their and policy foundations for accession queue. effectiveness in Slovenia” with growth in South East Europe: In November, 2014, Rainer Boštjan Jazbec (Governor of Remaking the Balkan economy Muenz (Head of Research at the Bank of Slovenia) as guest (Palgrave-Pivot, forthcoming Erste Bank, Vienna) gave a speaker. Boštjan pointed out 2015). Adam Bennett, Russell seminar, convened jointly by that Slovenia did not only Kincaid, Peter Sanfey and the ESC and SEESOX, “On the experience crisis via the late Max Watson collaborated doorstep between Brussels Eurozone -it also had a home to distil the findings of and Moscow”, looking at the grown banking crisis in 2013, SEESOX’s numerous seminars Boštjan Jazbec (left) with Adam Bennett economic prospects for the and was for a while branded and research initiatives, while countries of Central and the ‘next Cyprus’. Slovenia also drawing on recent work Eastern Europe – new both participated in the ECB’s undertaken elsewhere Member States and unconventional monetary (including in the context of candidates. Muenz’s rather policies (UMP) and also PEFM), in order to take stock depressing conclusion was introduced UMP measures of of the region’s economic that while these countries its own, while at the same situation in the wake of the could, pre-crisis, have time restructuring its banks. recent global financial and expected their growth Possibly as a result of these Eurozone crises and identify differential against western initiatives, Slovenia was fêted the policy priorities hereon. Europe to allow their GDP to at the IMF/World Bank Spring Adam Bennett C. Maxwell Watson: 1946-2014 Max Watson, the creator and inaugural Director of the programme on the Political Economy of Financial Markets (PEFM), and long-term senior associate of SEESOX, succumbed to cancer in December 2014. He started his professional life at the Bank of England and was then seconded to the IMF (1979-81) as personal assistant to the Managing Director. Max later returned to the IMF from the Bank in 1984, this time as Chief of the International Capital Markets Division.

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