How Should Greece Overcome The Relationship Between Greece And European Union?

For Greece, membership in the European Union has meant a sense of security and belonging. It has also brought Greece closer to its ideal of becoming a more western country. However, as most human endeavors, the process has not been free of problems. Greece has an identity one could describe as distinct from other Western countries. For example, they practice Orthodoxy rather than another form of Christianity as most Western European countries do – and, further, some academics (give a couple of names as examples) consider the resultant culture unreconcilable with Western Europe. When the financial crisis hit, the blame fell upon Greece largely in the media. The result is now that some of Europe consider Greeks to be lazy or disorganized, despite having among the most
It is no wonder, in this political climate, that even some Greeks consider themselves to be more Eastern than Western and, thus, not part of ‘Europe.’ However, this line of thinking takes a highly pessimistic view of what has occurred in Greece since the economic crisis. It is true that the relationship between Greece and European Union has been souring, however, the relationship remains much stronger than it is with other countries, such as the United Kingdom, and will improve in the future.
Accession to the EU and Public Opinion Pre-Crisis Before I can discuss how Greece may overcome the issue of competing identities, I must first discuss how integration with the European Community (EC) became an issue in the first place. Accession to the European Union was first floated in Greece in the early 1960s, it was seen as a way of “consolidating the country’s Western orientation, stabilising Greek capitalism and strengthening the domestic system against communism” (Verney 53-54). However, with the end of the 1974 Cyprus debacle, the relationship of Greece with the EC became more highly politicized (Verney). This meant that Eurosceptic parties slowly controlled