PASOK’s Foreign Policy Course Towards the Socialist Countries in the 1980s

In contrast to other Western European countries in which the Eighties were characterised by the cultural dominance of the “New Right”, Greek politics was dominated in the 1980s by the rise of the Greek Socialist Party (PASOK) which came to power in October 1981. Greece’s foreign and security policy towards the Soviet Bloc in the 1980s was for the most part a continuation of the Ostpolitik pursued by Greece’s conservative governments in the 1970s. An important component of the new era in the external relations of the country was the restrictive framework within which it played out. Contrary to the 1974–1981 period, the Greek Socialist era coincided with the hot phase of the Cold War in the first half of the 1980s, as well as with Greece’s reintegration into the NATO military command and accession to the European Community. In this framework, Greece’s new Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou’s opening to the Eastern European countries was not as skilful as Karamanlis’ policy. While Greece’s Ostpolitik in the 1970s did not precipitate any clash with the Western camp, Athens’ very active analogous policy in the 1980s burdened Greece’s relationship with its European and transatlantic allies. With his unprecedented opening to the Socialist camp and his radical anti-Western rhetoric and demagoguery, Papandreou became the “enfant terrible” within the Western Alliance. His resolute stance towards Turkey in a period of dramatic escalation of the Greek-Turkish conflict threatened to disrupt the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean, terrifying the NATO Alliance. In fact, US officials appeared by the end of the decade, after the two countries came again to the verge of a war, to have come to the conclusion that Greece and Turkey could hardly become US allies in a NATO engagement in South-Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the Soviet Bloc’s policy towards Greece since 1974 resembled that towards Turkey. It was characterised by economic benevolence, patience, gradual building of confidence and skilful exploitation of Greek disillusionment and dissatisfaction with NATO.