Euroscepticism (sometimes anti-EUism) is the body of criticism of the European Union (EU), and opposition to the process of political European integration, existing throughout the political spectrum.

It is becoming more important to reflect on the utility of the concept of Euroscepticism as a generic description of a multidimensional political phenomenon occurring in a number of different countries. Study of Euroscepticism nevertheless needs to be kept under review since the ways in which Euroscepticism is defined will reflect and help to determine judgments concerning the actual or potential significance of the phenomenon as a constraint on the shape and pace of the integration process. The benefits of this study can be described as an updated evaluation of Euroscepticism in a modern Western European state, in this cause Greece, which present an insight into anti-EUism and its behavior. Similar studies of Greek Euroscepticism have been conducted in the past by George Kyris¹ Susannah Verney² both which concluded that Greece has a specific kind of ‘Soft Euroscepticism’ noticeable in the states party system. It is a vision of this paper to offer an updated look (2014-2015) into this field of study.

The novelty of this study can be described as being an updated view on Greek political parties and the Eurosceptic elements that may reside within them. Greek Euroscepticism can be seen to be volatile due to ever present Greek debt crisis and changing governmental policy on dealing with it, because of this an analysis of current levels of Euroscepticism is definitely needed. In this study, various theoretical methodologies on how to view and analyze Euroscepticism have been synthesized into a single empirical method addressing not only how Euroscepticism is expressed, but also what may be its cause and function.

In European Union contemporary Euroscepticism is becoming more and more volatile. Common trend of political systems of EU Western EU member states can be seen as slowly growing disproportional displeasement and criticism of EU integration (in a public and government level) and benefits to a country that are presented by such integration. Modern Greece had experienced Euroscepticism in their political systems in one form or another, which can be active in parties and or political groups of these countries. Thus it is important to recognize this Eurosceptic behavior and analyze its causes in a goal to further understand how EU integration is negatively reflected in a country and what the sources that drive such expressions of Euroscepticism are.

In this paper I will seek to understand modern conceptualization of Euroscepticism in political party system of Greece which take the form of Eurosceptic parties. Sourced of information will be: 1). Official party websites, where political parties describe their policies and believes; 2) Interviews and commentaries of Greek party leaders in official news outlets; 3) Party electoral programs presented during last conducted parliamentary election in Greece 2015; 4) Political election goals of Greek political parties in 2015; 5) Any other official party correspondence describing party policy and or beliefs.

Main goal

Detect, analyze and evaluate the expressions of Euroscepticism in political parties of Greece. To achieve this I will: (1) describe Euroscepticism; (2) how it can be detected and measured within a party; (3) apply presented measuring methods to each of the politically active parties in Greece and conclude what type and level of Euroscepticism they express currently.

Main object of analysis

Active political parties of Greece and their Eurosceptic behavior.

Main tasks

1. Analyze the theoretical variations and sources of Euroscepticism formation in modern Western Europe.

2. Discuss the empirical evaluation and measuring methods of Euroscepticism in general and political parties.

3. Present current political parties active in Greece in the period of 2014-2015.

4. Analyze expressions of Euroscepticism within the political party system of Greece.

5. Analyze the main empirical functional source causes of Euroscepticism and its application in the political systems of Greece.

Structure

In the first part of the paper I will describe the conceptualization of Euroscepticism. By further detailing Euroscepticism, I will describe how it can be measured and what measurement and detection criteria should be applied when conducting this type of a study.

In the second part of this paper I will present active political parties in Greece and apply the Euroscepticism measuring criteria’s (form out of presented methodology in the first part of this paper) to these parties. This will evaluate the level of Euroscepticism each of the parties express, how it can be described and how it is being applied.

In the third part of this paper I will evaluate the measured levels of Euroscepticism of each active Greek party and conclude what type and level of Euroscepticism each of them expresses.

In the final part of this paper I will present my conclusions on the levels and expressions of Euroscepticism seen in current Greek active political parties at a current time.

As terms of Euroscepticism proliferate, it is becoming more important to reflect on the utility of the label, and hence the concept, as a generic descriptor of a multidimensional political phenomenon occurring in a number of different countries.

Euroscepticism as a phenomenon and as an element of contemporary political theory only came into the discussion at the first stages of European integration and further strengthening of the newly formed European Union. The first definition of the Eurosceptic³ phenomena can be traced back to United Kingdom, British National Corpus to be specific [1]. In contemporary European politics Euroscepticism is regarded more as a general negative towards EU attitude description, which can be applies to any other nation. Euroscepticism is generally compiled out of two elements – ‘euro’ and ‘skepticism’. We can assume that the ‘euro’ part in current notion is aimed at the European Union or other part of the EU. The skepticism element of the term is selfexplanatory i.e. negative critical attitude towards something. In essence, Euroscepticism is orientated as a negative or critical attitude towards the institutionalized European Union elements or its policy. One part of this term (Euroscepticism) that is interesting is the –ism part of the term, which in one form or another allows us to understand it as some sort of general ideological attitude towards the European Union. Indeed, precisely because the word has become such a catchall for labelling everything from public attitudes to political ideas and ideology, party positions and strategies, or governmental negotiating postures, there is a need to set parameters which allow distinctions of degree and kind to be made.

Euroscepticism as a cause of deepening integration

Most commonly Euroscepticism as a factor seems to result from the effects of deeping and ever evolving European integration process. Hans J. Trenz and Pieter de Wilde [2] had introduced this of possibly being related to how people and political entities react to changes that are presented by the European Union’s polity⁴. As such Euroscepticism should be viewed as a contesting and justifying action that seeks to view European integration and value its procedure on a democratic scale. Here we would see both pro and counter narratives assessing European integration and its worth. Both of them would effectively came to rise from European citizens or European polity. Thus we seen to asses Euroscepticism as a possible result of these factors:

• Euroscepticism envelops a correlation between contestation within a polity, justification integration and collective identity formation. From this Euroscepticism hold within itself multiple spheres of effect, in which it can be seen to progressively act and present results.

• Euroscepticism is a discursive formative action. It is a part of dynamics, which seeks to contest and justify European integration. Thus, assessing its worth. Here we can see Euroscepticism being used by two opposing forces to either justify European integration and or criticize it.

• Media plays an important role in both presenting Euroscepticism and possibly cultivating it. Because of this it is mostly approached as a result of party politics, which can range from Pro-European parties to Anti-European parties. This highlights the importance of looking at the media on how it present concurring and contemporary Euroscepticism seen within multiple or a single polity. We can take a look on how a party presents itself in the media and what purpose it may serve.

By following such guidelines we can start to asses Euroscepticism as a narrative within Greece, which in turn relates to European integration process. First we can start to asses Euroscepticism as a result of contesting which happens within a polity.

Polity contestation: As a part of any effective polity, contestation can be seen as a natural action. Arguing or disputing a specific discourse and or narrative is a part of any sufficient political system. In the case of the European Union this mostly can be seen as real problem since its inception with the Maastricht treaty⁵. Before this stepping stone the European Community was mainly focus on economic regional cooperation and with the induction of a strong political element into the community, certain contestation of it had begun to seem more relative as ever before. Although at this moment the European Union cannot be regarded as a full-fledged political entity, because there is still debate of what form it hold, we can see it as a polity or a unique political system [3].

Because there is still debate of what form and action should the European Union take, contestation and debate in this field only fuels Euroscepticism. If some form of uncertainty is present within the EU polity, multiple sides will try to argue on what they see the European Union becoming and what it should become. Both Hans Trenz and Pieter de Wilde [2] linked⁶ this to the existing uncertainty of the polity design that is present in the European Union. They argue that early functionalist argument of what the EU should have become did not end the polity settlement and stop these debates. Thus in EU, till this day, we can see multiple parties trying to assert their view and perspective of what EU should be. In term of Euroscepticism, this results in political entities (elites or parties), which are displeased with the current form of EU, to argue and dispute it, because it does not represent what such entities envisioned and or envision in the future of EU becoming. Visà- vis debate and arguing proceeds. The European Union seeking to be built on democratic values, these same values are being questioned. This results in the questioning of EU being not democratic enough to its citizens.

In this case Euroscepticism seeks to denounce the worth of European integration, where both (pro and con) sides seek to present their arguments. In an effort to legitimize itself, EU seeks to draw in citizens in its polity by allowing to vote on treaty establishment and change. In this EU had gone more public in an effort to legitimize itself. Here citizens had seem to many times reflect their displeasement with what course EU is taking by down voting treaties in national referenda⁷. Here we can see that citizens, by reasoning current polity action, may not always be in favor and simple reflect their displeasement by democratic action. Hence, certain EU integration aspect can be stopped simply as a result of Eurosceptic attitude to certain polity actions. We need to understand that Euroscepticism here did not disapprove EU policies, but rather the understood future of the polity (EU). That is to say, it simply argued against certain changes to constitutional design, polity design or EU institutions gaining more power. Thus contestation within a polity, coming from party of citizen, may opt-out of certain integration principals and agreements by simply not approving of them as being the next step in EU integration. Because of this parties may aggravate support to oppose such actions and EU citizens may present their disagreement by disapproving the vision of further EU integration. In both cases, the worth of EU integration is being questions and evaluated.

Measuring Euroscepticism

When seeking to understand Euroscepticism in contemporary European politics and seeking to apply it when analyzing political party expressions in Greece, we need to refer to the work of Paul Taggart [4] and Szczerbiak [5] whom refined the two types of Euroscepticism: a hard type and a soft type.

Hard Euroscepticism: The hard type of Euroscepticism was defined as political objections directed towards the European Union and its integration policy. Political parties in EU member states by this definition would advocate withdraw from the union or non-accession (if it’s only a candidate state). Political parties of such state would push forward opposite policy to accession into EU or would fight for the possibility of someday leaving the union due to its negative effects to the party home state.

Soft Euroscepticism: The soft form of Euroscepticism is not principal in its core as the hard type. In essence, soft Euroscepticism does not object accession into the European Union and does not principally advice leaving such union. This soft form of skepticism would rather object to a certain aspect of the union or seek to influence and or draw attention in a goal of possibly changing it. This form would mostly be seen in the opposition parties of a member/candidate state [4,5]. This soft form of concern would be mostly seen when a certain aspect of the European Union’s policy is contradicting in some way to the national policy or its goals, thus be subject to adjustment or change. In this case soft Euroscepticism may occur when a state, or parties within disagree with the sense of direction that the European integration is going in relativity to their nation.

Although this approach to identify Euroscepticism has seen as an incomplete one Kopecky and Mudde [6] argued that Taggart [7] do not take party ideological stance and policy position into consideration when describing Euroscepticism. They state that political parties within a state can be grouped into four classes of ideological stance:

• Europhiles – are groups of people, who are committed to the ideas of integration and progression underlined by the European Union and its evolution. These groups are still considered to be Europhile even though they may object to certain aspect of the integration policy.

• Europhobes - opposite to Europhiles, do not agree with the principals of integration presented by the European Union in relativity to a nation state.

• Euro-optimists – broadly accept, on a strategic plane, how European Union’s integration is advancing. They also European integration to be developing in practice in a positive sense.

• Euro-pessimists – see the European integration to not to be functioning as it should in a core sense in a strategic sense of development. These groups of people criticize the current state of development of the European Union and do not see it improving in the near future.

From these political stances towards the European Union, Kopecky [6] present four labels that political parties can be grouped into when defining them in a sphere of Pro/Con European Union.

• Euroenthusiasts – within themselves combine the ideological stance of Europhiles towards EU integration with a strategic position of Euro-optimists. Thus on the ideological stance they believe in European integration and its ideals, but at the same time are aware of the reality of integration development. In this sense they balance ideal and reality on an acceptable corresponding degree of acceptance.

• Eurorealists – within themselves combine Europhile ideological stance with Euro-pessimism. They understand the idea of European integration and see what the union “should be”, but see the European Union as failing to achieve it. They see the European Union failing to enact true integration in its political development.

• Eurocynics – within themselves do not believe in the idea of European integration and what the European Union is standing for on an ideological position, but at the same time understand and promote the benefits of such integration. This group of people do not support the idea of integrations, but are grandly accept the benefits presented by such integration. They seek to be involved in such integration as to receive potential benefits from it.

• Eurosceptics – are the anti EU label of political support towards EU. They do not support the idea of the European Union nor do they seek to be involved in it at any level. To the opposite of Eurocynics, they do not seek to receive benefits of such European integration.

These four labels presented by Kopecky [6] give us a good understanding of the model they were trying to present in labeling political party groups( parties ) in nations states and how their stance towards the European Union could be defined. Although this model could be used in identifying parties attitudes towards the European Union, Chris Flood in his analysis⁸ of both [5,6] had presented another six classes that can be used in classifying political party stance when measuring Euroscepticism. He had suggested that there should be form six categories of definition:

• Rejectionist - positions opposed to either membership of the EU or participation in some particular institution or policy.

• Revisionist - positions in favor of a return to the state of affairs before some major treaty revision, either in relation to the entire configuration of the EU or in relation to one or more policy areas.

• Minimalist - positions accepting the status quo, but resisting further integration either of the entire structure or of some particular policy areas.

• Gradualist - positions supporting further integration either of the system as a whole or in some particular policy area(s), so long as the process is taken slowly and with great care.

• Reformist- positions of constructive engagement, emphasizing the need to improve one or more existing institutions and/or practices.

• Maximalist - positions in favor of pushing forward with the existing process as rapidly as is practicable towards higher levels of integration either of the overall structure or in some particular policy areas.

Flood (2002) has seeking in presenting a tighter and cleaner classification of levels of Euroscepticism in political parties and at some level he did successfully achieved that. Differently from the four previous authors, we presented a more gradual classification with extensive levels of acceptance raging from full ‘maximalist’ and ending with a full rejection ‘rejectionist’. In this classification Flood allowed political parties to act not only as Pro/Con EU parties, but also as a possible reformists seeking to adjust the European Union as to quill their displeasement with it.

Flood explained that it is important to define a gradual change of attitude towards EU, because political party politics may change over time [1]. Thus we can add Flood’s conceptualization and combine with closer with ones by Taggart [5], Kopecky [6] in a goal of possibly achieving a greater understanding of classification and grading of the term “Euroscepticism” and it’s expressions in a party system and the state (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Acceptance of EU verticality.

Reevaluating measurement of euroscepticism

We also need to consider the definitions of Eurosceptic parties presented by Sofia Vasilopoulou [8,9] in her study of European Extreme Right. She suggested that definitions of Euroscepticism by Kopecky, Mudde [6] Taggart and Szczerbiak [5] have shortcomings and lack precision in effectively categorizing such phenomenon. She suggests that we should first break down European integration in three fundamental parts. These three parts would be: Principle, Practice and Future of European integration.

The first part of principal refers to a state’s goal of participating at a European level. This goal of participation can be seen as a wish and willingness for any type of cooperation at a European level. This is seen as a state’s cooperation at a larger scale with the European Community and its partners on a multilateral level⁹. The practice of such cooperation on European integration defined by the institutional balance the state has with the European Union. Here there lays a balance of intergovernmentalism and supranational level of cooperation with the European Union. The third future refers to the member’s states willingness and legality to participate in a possibly closer union. In this aspect, the state decides at what level it is willing to be a part of the European Union and how much power and legality it is going to transfer to it (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Perception of European integration segmentation.

This European integration conceptualization departs from the existing literature in a way that it breaks down European integration into a three tier rather than a linear phenomenon. The models that sought to explain political conflict in the EU have depicted European integration as one-dimensional. These are the international relations model Moravcsik, the Hix-Lord model, and the Hooghe-Marks model. All these three models take a one-dimensional approach to integration. They conflate the principle, practice and future aspects of European integration within a single dimension that extends from less to more integration. However, a linear depiction of integration does not help attain analytical precision because integration is viewed only through one prism. Admittedly, the suggested three-dimensional approach of the EU builds on the idea of diffuse and specific support for integration advanced by Kopecky [6] whereby the authors differentiate between the idea and the practice of European integration. Nevertheless, this analysis departs from Kopecky and Mudde’s because first, it offers a concrete explanation of what EU principle and practice are, based on the EU’s own legal documents. Second, acknowledges the important dimension of the member states’ agreement on building an ever closer union thus referring to the future of integration.

By following this conceptualization, three tiers of extreme Euroscepticism are presented by Sofia Vasilopoulou [9] in her evaluation of Euroscepticism phenomenon. These three types are as follows:

• Rejectionist Euroscepticism: political actors that are a part of this level completely reject any and all aspects and policies attached to the idea of European integration. When introducing the previously presented three tiers of European integration, these political elements reject the principal, disapprove the institutional and policy arrangement of the EU and do not believe/and or hold hope in the future of integration and cooperation. Political actors, and more mainly political parties, in this case seek to solve all policy problems domestically and do not wave the right to the EU. Political parties that are a part of this level seek to protect soverenity and state institutions from the outside influence of supra-national EU institutions and its policies. By this – parties that are a part of this level reject the idea of EU completely, are pro national and can be considered the radicalistic Eurosceptics.

Political elements belonging to this level are the complete opposite of pro-EU political parties and thus can be views as the grading start of measuring the shift of EU acceptance.

• Conditonal Euroscepticism: political actors/and or parties belonging to this level can be considered to be view the EU at some beneficial level. These political parties view the principal of cooperation at a multilateral level to be beneficial at some extent to their nation state. Still, political integration and unification hold negative effects. These political parties are willingly to cooperate with the European Union, but with a condition that under no circumstanced the soverenity of the state would be undermined. These political parties tend to cooperate at certain policies that are beneficial to the interests of the state. By not accepting the practice of integration, these political parties advocate intergovernmentalism over supranationalism. Future cooperation is rejected and believe that all main decisions should not be taken by EU institutions are a part of these parties Eurosceptic behavior.

• Compromising Euroscepticism: political parties in this level are in favor of practice, principal and future of European integration. They do so by believing that although some level of power and decision making transfer to the level of EU is not desirable, it is beneficial and necessary on order to achieve economic prosperity from the union. These political parties are in favor of economic integration and also at a level of political integration to be existing in order to protect national interest through EU institutions. In their believe EU should exist to protect national decision making processes. Although these parties are not in favor of the European Union becoming ever closer, they agree to play by the rules of the EU in order to strengthen their position in the union, which as previously states, help them in protecting and pushing national interests (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Attitude towards EU based on perception of EU’s integration.

When we will apply this evaluation in conjunction to other present evaluation methods, we will not single out only political elements as Sofia Vasilopoulou [9] had suggested. Although by her argument political parties of extreme right are more concerned about soverenity rather than policy, in our case we will not be limited by only rightwing parties and this this case we will use measurement going above the acceptance level.

Ideology’s role (how EU effects party ideological policy agenda)

Ideologies are not owned by political parties, but rather are merely represented by them. This dictates us that ideology and a certain way of thinking are represented by the parties’ actions and policies. Although this does not allow us to consider Euroscepticism as much as an ideology, but rather a certain group of political party expressions orientated towards the EU. In a sense, this may be seen as a party’s attitude towards the European Union and how it is effecting its political agenda. Still, we cannot deny that ideology has a certain role in shaping concurrent arguments for/and or against the European Union and its proceeding integration process. Current questions that are being raised as to explain and or understand the goals of EU that may be seen as positive or negative - could be answered in an ideological sense [1].

The concurrent sources of Euroscepticism, that sometimes take an ideological position (form), may seem to draw its power from a political elements who negatively seen danger that the European Union possess to a nation states identity and serenity. Though the question is EU polity framework challenge to the old understanding of a nation state, can be answer both positively and negatively (pro/con EU), we can see it coming from an ideological understanding of what is a nation, what are its role, how it should be defined. Main source of question most of the times is seen as – Nationalist, and its enforcement in a party’s agenda. This no way of saying that nationalist is the driving force behind Euroscepticism, but rather to say that this skeptic belief (and its variations) encompass within themselves elements of nationalizing ideologies. This can also be say for the understanding of what democracy is and how it should act in the European Union. Political parties may at many cases criticize EU not for being a threat to their national state soverenity, but rather for not being democratic enough or not following democratic values. Such understanding of Democracy and how it should be portrait in the European Union reflects also within political parties as a recourse of an ideological believe elements and are used to give the EU and its integration shape and also meaning.

Pool of soverenity as a cause of Euroscepticism

Euroscepticism can also be regarded as a form of polity contestation. European nations, since the early conception of the European Union in the 1950’s, had started to pool their soverenity into a single pool, which now had taken a form of EU [2]. In this way, the concept of soverenity that previously was regarded mainly belonging to a single stated, had become more of a combined concept. Thus European Union, which is now combined out of many sovereign nations, becomes a soft of unified polity or political union [3]. Because of this process of pooled soverenity, questioning the future and meaning of the union for the nation state had become an active part of member state party system debate. This leads us to question whether this combining of nation soverenity is the source of possible Euroscepticism nation and their party’s start to question its purpose and future. Here we need to understand that if nations are starting to pool their soverenity into a single entity, they tend to be more uncertain whether it is beneficial to them and how it can impact their state.

Following this approach, Euroscepticism is presented as not a counter effect to the policies and functioning of the European Union, but rather to the polity ‘political union’ that the EU represents and is trying at some cases to achieve. By this Euroscepticism is oriented against the supra-national institutions and the power they hold within the union. This can be seen orientated towards the integration of the European Union, which in effect, is seen to erode the singular soverenity or its member nations at many arguments. By this form of understanding the negative attitude, that is created by Eurosceptics, opposes the principle of integration. Thus political parties that can be viewed as a Eurosceptic parties may seem to promote policy positions that oppose such integration in the union (being guided by negative attitude towards it). These political parties, in this form of Euroscepticism, tend to devalue the benefits in policy fields such as (but not limited to): polity design, European integration and power distribution in the union. That is why the actions of political party aimed at criticizing EU polity should be regarded as a possible source and measurement factor when studying expression of Euroscepticism.

Causes of Euroscepticism in political parties

Many political researchers as Mudde, Rokkan, Lipset and Kopecky argue, that the possible cause for a party to resemble a Eurosceptic stance may be caused by ideology or political stance that party hold in the political competition within a polity. From their research we can distinguish two main major camps that tend to position Eurosceptic political parties and may explain the cause of such anti-EU position within them - Ideological and Strategic:

1. In the ideological camp, party preposition to Euroscepticism may be caused by that party’s ideological placement within an ideology spectrum and how that party places itself in contemporary/historical sense. In this camps party’s ideology prepositions a party’s attitude towards the EU in a broad way and is more constant and long lasting more than in the strategic camp. For example: a nationalistic party would presumably orientate it’s attitude towards EU in a negative way due to its nationalistic ideology¹⁰ stance and thus being tied to ideology, this positions towards the EU would be a long lasting one, because it is formed by nationalistic ideology.

2. In the strategic camps, a party assumes a role and position to suit it better when dealing with certain EU policy issues and policies. A party may take a certain position (positive or in our case negative) to better suit its goals when dealing within inner party competition in a nation state. Thus a party may use certain issues (connect with EU) and address them in a specific way if it will suit it’s end goals on gaining support or power in a state like party competition. Strategic conception tends to effect whether a party supports the current policy trajectory of the European Union. To draw an example: as we explained in our previous chapter - a party may take a certain negative stance towards the EU if it would provide that party with an advantage when competing with other parties and would also be able to draw support from the electoral, which would in turn support this specific course of action orientated towards a specific issue¹¹. If a party sees that it can gain support from the electorate by presenting a policy that is popular with the public (orientated negatively towards EU), if can gain an advance against other parties that present non-attractive policies.

Here we come across the two definitive camps that can help in seeking to understand what factors may cause negative attitude towards EU or in a general sense – Euroscepticism. We presenting these two camps of preposition: based on ideology or strategy – we can use this in trying to distinguish Euroscepticism sources within a specific party.

Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart had very well presented specific aspects to which we would orientate our attention when distinguishing to which camp a party belongs. As they presented, we should look into party ideological values and perceived interest of its supporters. By this we need to look: is the party following its ideology or it is seeking office? This type of a question may help us in seeking why such party pushes Euroscepticism. Still, because we may come across the fact that most parties are office seeking rather than goal seeking, ideology may not be the definitive factor on which we would base our presumptions of Euroscepticism in a party. Both ideology and strategy are many times flexible and adjusted in a broad sense to better suit the party in specific moments. The same goal/ideology still remains, but in a bit broader sense. A party may shirt it’s ideological position ever so slightly, but still remain in a specific ideological camps. Same can be said on its strategy – a party’s strategy may shift it the orientation of its supporter also changes, because if the views of the party electorate shift, the party needs to adapt of seek other supporters.

Reactivity of Euroscepticism in nation state

As we previously discussed the Euroscepticism argument is of a reactionary nature to European polity formation and continuing European integration, we need to take into consideration a nation state aspect in this case. Because the European Union agrees in participating in discussions of its justificatory discourse, the public is willing to use this opportunity as are the political parties. Citizens may choose to discuss the democratic legitimacy of the European Union through Mass Media, which can also be in turn used by political parties. Such parties may choose to notice that a certain concern is brewing in the state polity and seek to either support it or denounce it. In the case of Eurosceptic parties, such discourse of citizen displeasement attracts political actors [10].

We need to acknowledge that issues concerning European integration and having effect on it have large mobilization potential [2]. If those issues are not addressed, they tend to be still exploited. If these issues are addressed in the polity of a nation state, they can lead to the evaluation of EU itself in a perspective of the state. Is within a state European integration/or legitimacy are being promoted, following the guidelines of Euroscepticism reactivity which we discuss previously, it may result in an opposition taking up the mantle of counter-arguing against it. Although this can be most easily be seen coming from nationalist political parties, the opportunity to exploit the issue concerning the public may be taken up by non-nationalist parties. In this cases, as we will present in the next chapter of this paper, it may lead to political parties, which previously could not be labeled as Eurosceptic parties, to actually begin to act anti-European for the benefit of party competition or the state.

The reactivity of Euroscepticism

The effect of Euroscepticism being seen from a party politics perspective may be explained as a reactionary effect from the European Union enforcing and or expanding its influence onto the national state level with regulations and policy enforcement. This effect may be direct and indirect in a form of Europeanization [11,12]. This can be explained as a relation to anything that is being influenced at an European level affecting and prompting a response from a national citizen level in member states. In a way it fuels and pushes national level politics to decisively respond to its supporters and thus present their agreement or displeasement with the European policies. This politicization of European integration policies gives rise to some form on Euroscepticism when these policies are viewed with criticism or negativity. This was described as a marginal phenomenon – a result of post-functional integration. Because the European Union at its current stage cannot be viewed as a final result of integration, this can be expected, because political parties still have concerns and uncertainty views towards the outgoing integration and future of the union.

In a form of Euroscepticism being a reactionary element to European integration, it may be as a seen response to pro-European integration arguments, which states the benefits of integration. As a result of this, political forces, that have different views on integration, may present counter-arguments, which in their core take form of Eurosceptic arguments. These Eurosceptic arguments may challenge the accountability of the European level institutions and their officials. In a sense, they challenge the European Union’s institutionalization. Until European institutionalization continues and the legitimacy of the European Union is debates, whether on a national or international level, the Eurosceptic discourse will persist. In a sense we can understand this as this – Because the European Union is still in its stage of formation and still retains many possible senses of direction, the uncertainty that follows trying to understand the formation process and its possible outcomes will always give rise to political elements (elites, parties, government) to question the integration and EU process.

Because we can see Eurosceptics being linked to both the integration process and a reactionary force to pro-European arguments – the Eurosceptic element becomes a reactionary response aimed at the European Union. This allows us to view Euroscepticism not only as a separate discourse, but more as a tied in discourse to the whole integration process (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Reactivity of Euroscepticism elements towards EU’s integration and policy.

From this point we can assert the main three types of reactionary Euroscepticism, which is seen as a reactive element to the European Union and its policies:

Euroscepticism is an element of judgement that puts European integration to a test and the whole polity of the European Union to question.

• Reactional - Euroscepticism is a reactionary element aimed towards criticizing the elements and policies of the EU or challenging the legitimacy and course of action of European Integration. Eurosceptics are reacting to the progression of the European integration and the institutional and policy elements that are the source of such integration.

• Provocative - Euroscepticism seeks to provoke a response from the European elites in a goal as to challenge their legitimacy and institutionalization. In a sense, Eurosceptics seek to receive a response form European institutions and officials in order for them to legitimize their institutionalization.

• Anti-pro-European – Euroscepticism seeks to provide counter arguments to pro-European supports as a mean of criticizing their understanding of the goal and meaning of the European Union. Eurosceptics seek to judge the arguments of pro- European is an attempt to constitute.

Now that we have presented the typology classification of Euroscepticism being of reactive nature, we can start to further deduct its responsive nature. Because Euroscepticism is meant to respond to both European integration process and justify the actions taken by political actors - it start to question the legitimation aspect of the European Union [2]. As we previously discussed Euroscepticism providing arguments to European integration, it can be seen as reacting to the substantial growth of EU. This of course in our study being expressed by political parties. This was very well defined by Jorg and Wilde in their research on Euroscepticism where they argued that because of the EU having the ability to institute decisions over certain fields of policy and politics, it inevitably provokes a response affected parties (citizens and or parties)¹². This provocation of a response is affecting the national level in a way which we can see national political actors being fuel by this on a state level politics. It is further outlined that because the European Union is not a finished political construct, there is no ‘single consensus’ on the European level. This effectively leads to Euroscepticism being an expected element of contemporary EU politics and their ‘post-functional’ nature.

The reactivity of Euroscepticism being a reaction to pro-European arguments is also a factor. European Union is constantly evolving and European integration is being continued. This leads to the continuing of EU constitutionalization in a form of the union amending its treaties in order to adapt and change. To reach this, pro-European actors need to argue the need for this and convince their electorate in supporting this. By effect of this, these same arguments that are trying to achieve support for the European Union’s change and being disputed at a national level. This ‘domestic opposition’ seeks to provide their counter-arguments. This leads the opposition to begin and question the integrity and legitimacy of the pro-European political actors. This questioning of European elites may be due to the lack of justificatory arguments provided by European political actors and their institutions. In a sense we can see this as EU elites and institutions seeking to change the status quo of current political arrangements with member’s states and the form of the union and not providing sufficient Latinization to it, which leads to anti-EU actors to question them. This leads us to believe, that Euroscepticism is demanding for accountability on the continuing constitutionalization of the European Union.

As we first discussed Euroscepticism being closely linked to European integration at the start of this paper, we can say that the element of Euroscepticism is related to pro-European discourse and the development/or change of the nation state through Europeanization.

Eurosceptic elements in political parties

Previously we discussed what sources may cause Euroscepticism to become active in political bodies and actors and also in what levels it can be distinguished in a country such as Greece. Adding to this, we need to present the discourse of Euroscepticism and put it in a perspective of a political party (for this study). For this to be done I will seek to present in what ways party-based Euroscepticism may come into fruition within itself.

Concurrent political parties that are most available to express certain degrees of Euroscepticism may do so due to various reasons. None the less, those reasons are believed to be fueled by some sort of dissatisfaction about the European Union. Due to the fact that political parties in EU member states are mostly concern in representing national interest and working for behave on the state, those reasons may be tied into national politics. Still, it is important to distinguish what can and what can’t be seen as party based Euroscepticism. As presented by Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart in their work of discussing sources of Euroscepticism, we can present which elements of party-based activity should not be regarded as root Euroscepticism, as for this to be a factor in a study, it could provide false perception of a party being Eurosceptic as explained bellow:

1. Displeasement of EU due to the union failing to represent national interests. It is possible for any party to be displeased with EU policy at any given time. Still, because of a certain party not agreeing at any time with the European Union on its policy is too easy to be viewed as rise of Eurosceptic sentiment. Because policies change and are various in their nature within the EU, the level of pleasing everybody any time is non-impossible and certain disagreement that such policy sometimes does not correlate with the states national policy is very much possible.

2. Critic of specific EU policies. Absolute agreement with all EU policies is very much hard to achieve. There is bound to be displeasement with certain aspects of it. Political parties may have certain policy areas in which they do not agree with the European Union, but at their base – be in favor of EU policy. Due to this, these political parties should not be instantly labeled as Eurosceptics, though they resemble low form of Soft- Euroscepticism. For example of such parties as Finnish Social Democrats which do not support current plans for Common European Security and Defense¹³ policy, but in a broad term are in favor of deepening of European integration¹⁴ and becoming closer with the EU. Thus we can see that although a party may disagree with a certain policy action of the EU, at its core it is mainly a pro-European party. The problem here lays is that we may find problems distinguishing ‘policies of disagreement’ which can be associated with Euroscepticism. Question here is: to which policies can a party disagree for it to be considered anti-EU party?

Opposition to the enlargement of the European Union. In a general sense we can assume that if a certain party disapproves of EU enlargements, it is an anti-EU party in its core. Most theorist, such as Paul Taggart had theories such¹⁵. Understanding this we can imagine that a national party opposes EU enlargement in order to protect its national policies and the enlargement of the union may pose fears that the union wide policies may take priority over a national soverenity. In this sense many parties may be seen as anti-EU only by the fact that they had concerns on the EU enlargement. The problem here lays, as presented by Szczerbiak and Taggart [13,14], is that many Eurosceptics parties may act in favor of EU enlargement in maintaining hopes that this process may cause future problems for the basis of the union. Thus many Eurosceptic parties may not oppose current integration from the start and act in favor of it. These present problems when distinguishing such parties, because they do not speak out against integration from the start. Because of this, we cannot see all parties that oppose integration as true Eurosceptic parties, because most of them may just act in such a way due to specific problems and concerns that they have at a current time against the EU. This shows us that initial opposition to EU enlargement may be more of an expression of concerns from a certain party, but not a true expression of Euroscepticism.

4. Critics of the European Union not being democratic enough. Many concern forwarded to the European Union are of “not enough democracy” nature. This may fuel some parties to criticize EU for not implementing/having enough democratic mechanism and being not sufficient enough. Although this is critic of EU, in its core it is a critic of EU that “want more of EU”. In a sense such critic emphasizes more EU integration and power transfer to it in order to achieve more democracy. This may cause some political parties to be seen as anti-EU for their critic of it, but when we look at it deeper, we see that such critic is based on wanting more of EU. This may puzzle many Eurosceptic party distensions, because although many parties could be labeled anti-EU from the start, they are not criticizing the nature of EU, but more the lack of there being more of it. Because of it we cannot label such parties as being true Eurosceptic political parties. This is because such parties want more of EU and they want integration to come faster.

Operationalization of Euroscepticism in political parties

Previously we have discussed ‘how one can and see detect anti-EU parties’ and ‘how we can label them’. Only by first theorizing the tools which we can use to detect an anti-EU party in Greece, only then we can begin and try to measure the level of expressed Euroscepticism that it holds.

We can, at some level, measure the level of Eurosceptic expression by looking into the subject party’s share of passed votes towards significant EU policy implementation in a national parliament¹⁶. For example – national memorandum. By first detecting an anti-EU party and then looking into how it supports such policies, we can as a small level measure the expressions of Euroscepticism of that party towards the European Union. Although this is not sufficient enough to truly measure anti-EU sentiment, because a party may express its consideration of the European Union ir many more ways that only voting against its policies. We can add few more conditions in seeking to measure an anti-EU sentiment of a political party.

We cannot forget that parties may even use national referendum as an opportunity to act Eurosceptic for their benefit [2]. Although, different political actors may use different means to present their solutions to multiple problems. Euroscepticism in this case may be of two types¹⁷ in a political party: 1) Passive; 2) Blocking. The passive type tends to seek evaluation of worth polity change. Completely operating through discussion and public emotions. The blocking type of party would seek in this case to progressively block any transformation, federalization or constitutionalization. It would seek more to support market integration and only mild conservative polity integration.

Further we will present how such a party of two types would seek to use a European issue and in what field of polity it would apply it¹⁸ (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Applicable flow of Euroscepticism.

• How a party uses and European issue in inner-party competition of a nation state. Does a party use an European issue that is hold opposition to when fighting for support and battling other parties for power in a state? This can give us an understanding which political views, which are attached negatively with the European Union, are used by political parties in a political system and what weight/importance it hold. Does a political party use an European issue when criticism other political parties of the same system in order to present them negatively? Such path of action may help us to see if a political party, previously labeled as an anti-EU party, uses an European issue to act as an Eurosceptic party in a system of multiple parties.

• How an European issue is featured in a public debate of political issues of a nation state? Does a presumably Eurosceptic party emphasize an European issue that it opposes in a public sphere of debate? In other words, does such party try to draw attention from the public to this issue at the same time presenting its constructed opposition towards it? If a nation’s political issues and European issue is featured, does this issue attract support from plausible anti-EU parties? These questions can help us to better seek and evaluate what issues (attached to the European Union) are used in a public debate of parties and which parties are most active in presenting it.

• How much support does such party gain from the public in a form of political support and votes. Does a political party uses an European issue in its political/election program. In other words, does a political party, when fighting in elections or in a parliament, actively have an anti-EU policy in its inner workings. If a political party not only seeks to draw attention from the public to a certain European issue, but also has anti- EU policies policies on such issue, it may use its anti-EU policy to gain support from the voters. Thus if a party actively emphasizes its negative stance on EU and seeks to draw support from the public in order to implement its anti-EU policies, we can see this as a measurement opportunity. Although we need to emphasize that the size of such party does not hold major importance in this case, because we seek to measure and detect the anti-EU policies that it carries with its political program.

By adding these measurement criteria to our study, we can broaden our measurement of Euroscepticism not only in a political system of a state, but also in the inner actions of political parties that are a part of such system. By expanding out view of a certain measurements we can get a broader spectrum of possible anti-EU expression formations attached to an Eurosceptic party.

In the previous parts of this paper we have discussed different ways to indicate and measure Euroscepticism in a political party [2,5,8,9,11,12]. Following methodology from these authors, presented in previous chapters, a path of analysis is form, which will indicate, evaluate and analyze Euroscepticism in Greek political party sphere. This analysis is formed out of 4 main criteria, each of which will split Euroscepticism into separate interconnected segments:

Synthesizing a new model from previously described methodologies:

1) Perception of EU – how does the party see EU?

2) Measuring level of critique – To which camp of Euroscepticism does the party belong: Soft/Hard Euroscepticism.

3) Sources of critique and their ability to change – what are the main sources of such critique ,that take form of eurosceptic arguments/expressions, and how do they tend to change?

4) Application of critique - how is it being applied?

These four factors (criteria) of perception, measurement, change, application will each define a different section of Euroscepticism analysis in Greek political parties. Each of the factors will be based upon previously discussed methodology of conducting a study of Euroscepticism. This will not only give us a fleshed out understanding of each elements, but also present a form of contrast.

Firstly I will present each active political party in Greece and apply my previously presented criteria (how does a party see and describe the EU) following Vasilopoulou’s methodology of evaluating party perception of European integration by looking into how a party sees itself and its country whiting the EU by past, present and future. Thus we will evaluate how each of the political party’s active in Greece sees parts of principal, practice, future European integration. In detail we will understand how a party sees the principal idea of EU, how that idea is being implemented in practice and what the future of EU is in its eyes. This will indicate to which concurrent aspect of the European Union integration a party seems to be orientated mostly in their critic/displeasement. Does a party critique in EU integration, EU institutional balance or EU’s evolution in the speeches of party leaders, party campaign rhetoric, and publicly described political goals. Also, this will allow us see to what the party dedicates most attention when referencing EU. Thus, we will start to see how each of the political parties sees the need, or lack thereof, to criticize EU.

Measuring level of critique

Secondly we will apply Taggart and Sczerbiak [13,14] methodology of Hard/Soft Euroscepticism to each party and position it on the camps of soft, hard Euroscepticism or pro-EUism raging from Rejectionist- Maximalist Euroscepticism which will allow us to sufficiently group Greece’s political parties to their respected labels of Eurosceptic behavior either in Pro-European or Anti-European. This will also allow us to more clearly separate them within camps of Euroscepticism and eurosceptic behaviors.

When previously detecting to which part of EU idea (principle, practice or future) the critique is aimed, we will be able to correlate it coinciding with camps of Hard/Soft Euroscepticism, depending of the party challenging the status quo of current EU order. By looking into how a party challenges the current order with its rhetoric, party program and on what degree it does that, we see how it places itself to either of three: Rejectionist, Conditional or Compromising Euroscepticism, which will aid us in the later stages of this paper.

Sources of critique and their ability to change

Thirdly, depending on a level of Euroscepticism detected in each of the analyzed active political parties of Greece, we will apply Vasilopoulou’s reevaluated method of labeling Euroscepticism, which exists as rejectionist, conditional or compromising. This will allow to us to indicate the critique and the compliance level of eurosceptic parties towards the EU. In detail this will show us how a party sees possible future cooperation with the European polity. In addition to this, application of “sources of Euroscepticism’ as suggested by Mudde, Rokkan, Lipset and Kopecky [6] will allow to place the party either in a Strategic or Ideological camp of Euroscepticism – allowing to better understand the source of anti-EU critique.

By looking into how a party phrases its public critique, from what grounds it draws it and does such critique stay consistent (does not radically change with current events) will allow us to detect main sources of such critique and in addition - on what grounds does an analyzed party base its eurosceptic behaviors – ideology or strategy. Does it seek to reject all that is EU or rather, seeks to change existing conditions of compliance or is willing to compromise in order to achieve a certain goal? Also, from where does a party draw its eurosceptic critique (what fuels the critique in a specific party)? Thus we will detect to which level of cooperation is the party aiming for and willing to cooperate within the European political community in addition to source factors of strategic or ideological Euroscepticism.

Application of critique

To further analyze Euroscepticism in Greek political parties, we will seek to apply Börzel, Risse [11] and Olsen [12] views on Reactionary Euroscepticism and assign it to either reactionary, provocative or anti- EU reactive behavior. To do so we will look to which EU policy spheres does a party aim its public critique in order to change, reject it or reform it. This will indicate whether previously measured Euroscepticism can be defined as responsive to:

1). Reacting to a certain aspect of EU (EU institutions, EU policy) or mainly as a result of EU ongoing integration policies.

2). Seeks to gain a response or challenge the legitimacy of European elites.

3). Committed to anti-EU ideals and seeks to prove pro-EU arguments being wrong by different reasoning of the purpose of EU.

Previously measuring the level of Euroscepticism, we will apply Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart’s Eurosceptic elements seen in political parties we will see how Eurosceptic issues and behavior is noticeably seen/used in each of the party’s rhetoric, public opinion, political claims.

By following these steps, we will start from party perception of EU integration principals in its political rhetoric, move through measuring such perception and evaluating the ability of it to be subject to future change, and finally reach the possible varieties of how parties may use/ are using now anti-EU critique in their political lives, public political statements and opponent critique.

As we have presented and discussed methods of detecting and evaluating Euroscepticism in a political system in previous parts of this paper, now we need to apply these evaluating methods to Greece’s political party system and parties that are a part of this system.

This will serve us in evaluating the most and least Eurosceptic parties currently active in Greece’s political party system.

To achieve this we will delve into Greece’s political party’s ideology spectrum, policy, program and behavior. First we will seek to place Greece’s political parties in their corresponding places on the ideological spectrum as to better define their background.

Firstly we will look into the current Greece party’s so that we would understand the identity of those parties. As we previously discussed in our previous chapters, the concurrent source of Euroscepticism, that sometimes takes form of critique of EU, may seem to draw its power from a negatively seen danger that the European Union possess to a nation state identity, soverenity or party beliefs. In this case, the introductory positioning of a party in Greece can help us evaluate what that party’s stance on Euroscepticism should be. Although the question - is EU dangerous to the old understanding of a nation state, can be answer both positively and negatively (pro/con EU), we can see it coming from an ideological understanding of what is a nation, what are its role, how it should be defined. Main source of question most of the times is seen as – Nationalist, and its enforcement in a party’s agenda. By this, presenting the descriptive position of a party may help us in understanding how its political views may be influencing the existence or lack thereof – of Euroscepticism.

Current active Greek parliamentary parties

Left-wing: The Coalition of the Radical Left SYRIZA (Left-wing) “Unitary Social Front” - a political party in Greece better known by its acronym SYRIZA. The Founding Congress of the new party defined itself as a party of the democratic and radical Left, which has its roots in popular struggles for Greek independence, democracy and labor and anti-fascist movements in Greece. SYRIZA promotes is position to will abolish the memoranda¹⁹ signed with the Troika of lenders. It seeks to assumes office and to re-negotiate the loans with Greece’s creditors. At the same time it seeks officially promote a program of social and economic reconstruction that encompasses development that promotes human needs and well-being and respects nature. SYRIZA presents it position of denouncing the dominant extreme neoliberal and euro-Atlantic policies this party believes that they must and should be transformed radically in the direction of a democratic, social, peaceful, ecological and feminist Europe, open to a socialist and democratic future. This is why SYRIZA is in favor of cooperation and coordinated action of left forces and social movements on a pan- European scale.

This political party can be considered Left-Wing in an ideological spectrum within itself encompassing ideologies²⁰ of: Democratic Socialism, Eco-Socialism, Alter Globalization, Left-Wing Populism, and Libertarian Socialism.

• The River POTAMI (Centre-left) – a political party in Greece originally founded by Stavros Theodorakis (respected journalist in Greece) in the year 2014. POTAMI, as told by its founder²¹, does seek to have an ideological basis, but rather be a steering point in Greek politics. The party seeks to build credibility in Greece political system and to support the “working people”. Even the moto of the party speaks of “politics for all”. This to add indicates that the party tries to apply to a majority of electorate without signifying a specific ideological support. Although, the party seeks to act as a movement and to bring politics to all the people of Greece present the existing political arena as favoring the political elites and inner-party promotions, thus excluding outsiders. In this Potami labels itself as a reformist party²² and seeks to rebalance and reform the current Greek political arena believing that a new perspective is needed to that Greece would sort out its bail out financial problems and would stay in the euro zone. According to Theodorakis, Potami would seek to create more jobs, reverse minimum wage cuts, and include aimed taxation and to work with their ‘European peers’. This indicates that this party, though not labeling itself ideologically, could be positions in the center-left political spectrum with no conclusive indication of avoiding future political waving.

• Movement for Democratic Socialists (KIDISO) is one of the youngest political parties in Greece established in 2015 by G. Papandreou from split parts of the Panhelienic Socialist Movement party²³. Party goals are describes as ‘liberating the Greek people from new dependence’ and fighting for the middle class Greek citizen, green policies and principles of all united socialists²⁴. KIDISO seeks to be very much focused on the financial crisis of Greece as in their party goals it is quite often referenced as the cause for current Greek problems²⁵. Although the party is quite young in Greek political sphere, it express much rhetoric towards the current financial problems that Greece is facing. KIDISO seeks to reform the current Greece polices, as to avoid further financial disasters, and to destroy the shackles of current Greek patronage system. As a left-wing party, KIDISO seeks to review the current Greek vertical distribution of power and wealth – following leftist beliefs.

• The Communist party of Greece (far-left) – a political party in Greece was originally founded in 1918 under a name of ‘Socialist Labor Party of Greece’ and can be considered one of the oldest political parties in Greece. This political party could even be seen as a relic of communist in Greece. The party prides itself on contributing to international communist movement and to the struggle against imperialism²⁶. Although this party can be criticized for being a “political fossil”, its ultra-leftism presents a sufficient contrast not only to the political division within Greece, but also the political take upon the economic European Union. The party even tend to criticize parties as the Golden Dawn and Syriza as being “byproducts of the confusion” that was created in recent years²⁷. Thus this party can be seen taking a strong ideological stance upon events that are conspiring in Greek political scene. This political party did not change much in the period of 20 years, which indicates a strong ideological dependency and effort to maintain such dogmantic²⁸ belief. Because of this, we should be able to see strong leftist beliefs and ideological expressions within this party’s political rhetoric and party program.

Centre-right and centre-left

• Union of centrists (non-parliamentary party) is a political party in Greece, which was founded by Vassilis Leventis and established in 1992. This political party’s place in the ideological spectrum most resembles centrism²⁹. The party of the Center Union claims to be the only historical continuity of the once mighty party of the Centre Union of the late George Papandreou³⁰. Union of Centrists seems to be one of the oldest and active parties of modern Greece – being active in Greece parliamentary elections (in a participatory form). The Union of Centrist states that the center belief area is the only political space that was served by people and with required dignity. Party seeks to change Greek political scene by democratic means and without fanaticism. Surprisingly the party states (in its party goals) that is does not seek to ‘win elections’ or to govern. Because of this Union of Centrists seem to more likely seek influencing the political sphere of Greece without direct participation in government formation.

• New Democracy ND (Centre-right) is a liberal-conservative political party in Greece that was founder in the year of 1974 by Konstantinos Karamantis, who was a part of the government transition in Greece from a military dictatorship to a democracy. New Democracy is one out of two major historical parties in the state. This political party was in favor of entering the European Union, at a time called European Economic Community³¹. New Democracy promoted liberalism ideas as to indicate the acceptance of the European integration. Its ideology is socially conservative, with economically liberal elements. ND supports and, as a governing party, implements the economic bail-out program for Greece. This political party supports greater economic liberalization, privatization, lower taxes and is strongly for European integration, but seeks to oppose EU bailout.

• Panheliemic Socialist Movement PASOK (Centre-left) – is a political party in Greece, which was original founded in the year 1974³². This political party was founded by radical Marxist inspired elements, which seeked to dissolve the military powers (left after the fall of military dictatorship) of that time and to impose stronger government control over the state economy and regulation. Still, with the popularity of Marxism falling over the decades, this political party adapted and transformed into a more main stream social democratic party and became the second leading historical party in Greece. Although the party started as a leftist political party, over time it drifter more to the center and became a more center-left party with strong leftist roots.

Right-wing

• Golden Dawn XA (Far-right) – political party in Greece formed in 1991 (registered in 1993), which would be better described as a far-right nationalistic party of Greece. This political party is a strong supporter of nationalistic values in Greece and sometimes is labeled as a “neo-nazi” party, even though the party itself does not see strong nationalism being a crime³³. This political parties sees itself as being a strong movement orientated not only towards national politics, but also European level politics. The nationalistic nature of Golden Dawn can’t be mistakes due to the party’s strong pro-national rhetoric and agitation of nationalistic values and their importance in current Greece politics. Due to this, we can see this party being the ‘active’ voice of nationalism in current Greece politics as this party describes itself³⁴ as the major voice of nationalistic values for the Greek people.

• Independent Greeks (Right-wing) - political party founded in Greece in the year 2012 by former member of Parliament Panos Kammenos, which was previous expelled for ‘New Democracy’ political party due to opposite to party views voting³⁵. This party is better described as a populist, rightwing movement, which promotes patriotic values and opposes economic deals imposed over Greece by the European Union (first and second Memorandums). This political party could be seen as a reactionary party formed in the period of Troika- Greece negotiations of Greek debt. The party seeks to revoke the agreements that the previous-current Greek government conducted with the European Union as sees them as illegal and conspiratorial³⁶. In sum: this political party is much orientated not mainly on promoting a specific ideology, but rather aiming to oppose actions that the European Union and its institutions had imposed over Greece associated with the state debt crisis.

Selected the current politically active parties in Greece that participated in the last 2015 September election. The votes that each political party had received are presented below (Table 1).

Table 1: 2015 Greece parliamentary elections results (ElectionResources.org)¹.

Now that we have briefly presented the current electorally important political parties in Greece, we can start to delve deeper into their policies in order to detect and analyze the levels of possible Euroscepticism and its expressions seen in those parties.

Perception of EU

In the previous parts of this paper we have explain various ways of measuring and detecting Euroscepticism in a political party. In addition to that, we have also present a model upon which we will act in analyzing Euroscepticism in political parties of Greece. Now will take upon reviewing how political parties of Greece measure in acceptance of 3 EU principals – principal, practice, future, which were described by S. Vasilopoulou (2009). To explain in greater detail, we will select each of the active Greek political parties and apply this methodology to each one of them. This will serve in understanding how each of the active political parties view European Integration and measure their ‘believe’ in the European Project.

We will split the Greek parties into parliamentary and nonparliamentary Greek parties, where parliamentary parties hold the higher relevance due to their direct ability to participate in Greek government decision making.

Current Greek parliamentary parties

The Coalition of the radical left (SYRIZA) will be our first subject of analysis

• Principal: The principal belief in the European integration can most simply be defined as a wish and willingness for any type of cooperation at a European level. The dominant problem for SYRIZA was dealing with the Greek debt crisis and demand from the EU to assume fiscal responsibility. SYRIZA campaign on goals of “Man over Profits”³⁷ and further signaled as it would protect the Greek people from overly harsh austerity measures. Still, SYRIZA did not indicate that it would utterly nonnegotiate with the European Union – showing us that it seeks further negotiation, but not utter rejection. Thus, this political party seeks further cooperation with EU, but not to leave it. Also, it does not completely reject EU austerity measures, but rather seeks to negotiate them. This is one of the main goals of this party – to secure the interests of the Greek people in the European Union³⁸. Also, from latest statement of the party, it does not seek for Greece to leave the euro zone – signaling its wishes of Greece’s participation following principal ideas of integration³⁹. If SYRIZA would not believe in the principal of EU integration, it would not seek to still remain a part of such integration and would completely disregard it. In its party’s ‘Founding Declaration’, SYRIZA still regards EU as a positive element to the European community. Thus Greece still remains an integral part of EU in the eyes of SYRIZA.

• Practice: The practice believe in the European integration can defined as cooperation on European integration defined by the institutional balance the state has with the European Union. Here lays a balance of intergovernmentalism and supranational level of cooperation with the European Union. Here we can see how SYRIZA seeks the balance of institutional power between Greece and EU institution. SYRIZA cannot be described as a pushover party when dealing with EU bureaucracy. SYRIZA is well known for standing up against EU institutions⁴⁰ when being presented by, as described, humiliating deals, which indicates that this political party does seeks to represent national interests on an international scale of the European Community. In this case SYRIZA is willing to disagree with supranational institutions, even when dealing with harsh political/financial problems. To add to this, SYRIZA’s main concern with current EU’s establishment is described as ‘one dominated by Germany’, to which this party expresses much concern⁴¹. Although, it had seemly overplayed its hand dealing with EU institutions and Greece bailout⁴², SYRIZA’s actions of standing against or seeking to compromise shows that this party believes that the practice of EU integration is best achieved in a subtle balance of power between Greece and EU, which in turn requires disagreement on EU institutional power balance over the national level in order to protect Greek interests. Thus, SYRIZA is not allowing EU to dictate unopposed, but tends to compromise when needed or if there is no other way.

• Future: The future belief in the European integration can defined the willingness and legality to participate in a possibly closer union43. This becomes a question of – how much power SYRIZA is ready to transfer from Greece’s national level to EU’s supranational. SYRIZA believes that EU can be “… transformed radically in the direction of a democratic, social, peaceful, ecological and feminist Europe…”⁴⁴, which in turn signals that the current future where Europe is heading does not comply with the party’s vision. In this case SYRIZA, a leftist party, seeks the “re-foundation” of Europe from artificial divisions. We can see that SYRIZA is seeking a closer union in Europe, but not in the way it is seen today. In his latest speech⁴⁵ Alexis Tsipras emphasized that Europe should solve problems, such as Greece debt crisis, not separately, but together. That this is not a problem for only Greece, but the whole European Community. We can see this as goals for ever closer union, but cannot see it as a goal for a union ruled by EU institutions. The party and its leader indicates that an ever closer can be achieved by cooperation and not imposed unification⁴⁶. In this case we can view the belief in the future principal of Europe being uncertain and rather requiring re-definition and not acceleration of its current path.

Indication: 1). Principal – Agree; 2). Practice – Disagree; 3). Future – Disagree.

The River (POTAMI):

• Principal: POTAMI is a relatively new party founded in 2014. Because of this the party had not much time to experience conducting politics with the European Union. Still, when looking into believe of the party in the European integration, the principal believe in EU can still be distinguished none the less. POTAMI is seeking to actively participate in European politics and even aiming more towards EU elections rather than national ones⁴⁷. This party sees itself as a pro-EU political party⁴⁸ and openly promoted the need for new politics⁴⁹ in Greece to combat the current Greek political elites. The party leader Stavros Theodorakis even praised SYRIZA (seen in Greece as an Eurosceptic party) party leadership⁵⁰ in keeping Greece in the euro zone following the 2015 EU Summit in Brussels. This shows that POTAMI party and its leadership strongly believe in sustaining EU cooperation and maintaining Greece position within the union. In his recent interview⁵¹ with a German news outlet, Stavros Theodorakis strongly called out other Greek parties for being anti-EU fanatics and emphasized that he created his party ‘The River (POTAMI)’ as a “… progressive pro-EU party…” to combat current Greek politics and anti-EU sentiment.

• Practice: Although POTAMI is not a ruling political party in Greece, it is still capable of presenting their views onto the current negotiations and activities related to the European Union. Firstly, POTAMI is seeking to be an active party in European politics, often aiming at EU level election on par with the national level ones⁵². POTAMI, as we will be able to see, seeks not to combat the recent power balance in EU, but take up upon themselves to be a part of this power struggle. This shows that this progressive pro-EU labeled party sees European elections being not less important than the national ones. It does not seek more to combat the EU institutions, but rather be a part of them and thus, influence them to a certain degree⁵³. This political party believes that a certain balance of supranational and national institutions should be achieved so that both the EU and Greece would effectively solve the required problems facing them. POTAMI leadership sees EU politics as available to every Greek citizen. Because of this the party leadership often emphasizes its role in promoting “average” citizen candidates⁵⁴ in European elections. This in turn indicates that this party does not see EU politics being above an average Greek citizen and more maintaining a certain balance - coming from national level participation in the EU level, is required. Thus we can say that POTAMI agrees that current practice of EU politics is not less important, nor is it less important of being a part of such politics. EU’s integration is necessary and further participation and efforts to influence EU’s institutions is needed.

• Future: When looking into POTAMI and attempting to see how this political party sees closer Greek participation in the EU union, few things stand out: how this party sees the importance of EU and what role it gives to Greece in that participation. Because POTAMI is viewed in the public eye as a pro-EU party⁵⁵, sufficient to say that it would see a bright future for Greece in EU. Stavros Theodorakis regarded EU as being⁵⁶ “…despite its problems, it serves as the only successful example of interstate cooperation”. By this EU is understood as only successful example of such integration. This, in turn, means that POTAMI, at this moment (with its current leadership), sees EU as a good example of interstate cooperation and believes that by being a part of such cooperation, it as other states, should seek to push for forward integration. Also, party leadership seeks to avoid having anti-EU policies in Greece⁵⁷ and is ready to fight against such policies. In a party that has no single ideology and is more constructed around a single person, these goals are indicative of party goals. Thus we can say that this political party sees closer integration and believes that Greece will be an important part of future of EU, more importantly the EU euro zone⁵⁸. We can’t see there being strong will to change the EU or to augment it by criticizing its current form. Just effort to influence it for the better. This party seeks more moderation and great participation in the EU from the public level (citizen government). Also, the benefits of being within the EU and following its customs and traditions⁵⁹ are the grounds upon which Greece should act. Thus, the belief in the democratic European Union – the vision of EU, can be clearly seen in this party.

Indication: 1) Principal – Agree; 2) Practice – Agree; 3). Future – Agree.

New Democracy

• Principal: The principal view of European Integration within New Democracy is regarded as being of strong support for integration within the European Union⁶⁰. New Democracy is also an older party, which was formed in 1974 – during the beginning stages of European Economic Integration. The founder of the party Konstantinos Karamanlis assured Greece entrance into EEC⁶¹. Thus, this party had more time to be familiarized with EU founding principles and grow as the whole EU community grew. This puts New Democracy in a more experienced position of practice principal. Party’s defined struggle of ‘Why Fighting’ clearly states that New Democracy is for “A proud Greece within a united Europe!”⁶² Also, not like other Greek political parties that could be loosely regarded as Eurosceptic due to being of reactive nature to Greek debt crisis, this party had seen Greece’s entrance into EU and had already accepted the principal for such acceptance to have occurred at all. In sum, New Democracy believes in European integration and being a part of European monetary union the euro that it is willing to compromise with other parties, such as SYRIZA, to assure such integration to be maintained⁶³.

• Practice: New Democracy is said, by its leader Evaggelos Meimarakis, willing to uphold Greece place in the European Union and seek to guarantee its future in further integration⁶⁴. When talking about the power balance of EU institutions against national ones, Evaggelos Meimarakis expresses that delay of EU institutional implementation is expected and sometimes necessary, stating that, when EU institutional policy to Greece is not applicable with party views or beliefs, that such policy should be changed or not applied⁶⁵. This shows that New Democracy and its leadership does not view EU supremacy over a national state as a beneficial relationship of the two, but is still willing to agree upon it to secure Greece’s course in EU. This political party seeks a truly democratic Europe, where Greece would stand together with other nation states and be able to benefit from sustainable development of EU and its partners. New Democracy is also a member of the European people’s party⁶⁶, which indicates that this party seeks to participate in larger European politics (acting as a part of a supranational party in EU’s Parliament)⁶⁷. Although this political party differs in its current views of EU as it wishes to secure Greece’s course as an EU state, but disapproves of current union’s path. As expressed by E. Meimarakis, New Democracy seeks to restore the confidence in Greece that was brought down by Tsipras (SYRIZA).

• Future: New Democracy indicates that it is fighting for a united Europe. Still, when looking into how it would see further stronger integration within the European Union, party ideology clearly states its definition of European Integration being “…participate equally in a convergence of peoples, nation states, national cultures and national interests. This is European integration. Not the leveling of different nations. United Europe is a voluntary convergence with freedom and democracy, without relieve of our national identity.”⁶⁸ This shows that this party sees EU as a combination of national states, not a federalized system. Thus, any integration programs that may cause the diminishment or threat to national identity may be views negatively. This puts future principal of EU in a rather intergovernmental position. New Democracy may be willing to support a union of national states, but not union of supranational Europe.

Indication: 1). Principal – Agree; 2). Practice – Agree; 3). Future – Disagree.

The communist party

• Principal: The Communist’s party view on the European integration, the party sees the European Union and the integration idea that it presents as a beneficial tool for uniting European Communists⁶⁹ within the EU Parliament. Although the party emphasizes the negative effect of interference that the European Parliamentary left presents, it still seeks to again support from other communists. The party sees EU as an element for achieving peace and prosperity within Europe, but at the same time as a ground for capitalism, economic crisis and the rising of fascism⁷⁰. To this we cannot avoid seeing the communists view of EU being of a quazay beneficial nature. The European Integration allowed capitalism to spread and take ground in Europe, thus giving ground to future economic crisis tied with the idea of capitalism. To this we can say that EU presents a tool for uniting European communists from other countries into a single group, but at the same time promoting capitalist, monopoly values in the outgoing integration. The Communist party seeks European Integration as a good thing, but with negative side effects that should be ‘combated’.

• Practice: The Communist’s party view on current power balance between EU and national institutions is somewhat troublesome. This is because the Communist Party sees the European Institutions as tools to change history⁷¹ and denounce the historic importance of the Soviet Union to the European history. The Communist party described EU institutional involvement in the Greek Debt crisis as an attempt to inforce capitalist values and devaluate the importance of the worker⁷². This is mainly due to the fact that in their eyes, parties such as SYRIZA had disappointed the Greek people and got influenced by the European Institutional powers. Because of this the Communist party believes that central planning of the economy within the state is needed and not the supranational implementation of foreign policies. The main accent of the Communist party is to “Disengage from EU” so that required necessary solutions of productive reconstruction could be implemented for the people of Greece⁷³. Due to this the Communist Party seeks to combat any party that defends the capitalist system. The party seeks to unite the worker class in Greece and combat the pro-monopoly policies⁷⁴, capital and EU itself. Due to this we can see that the Communist party does not agree on EU institutional oversight over national institutions and seeks for the national institutions (formed by the working class) to be the guides for Greek citizen going for prosperity and equality of the working class.

• Future: When talking about the future on European integration (closer union), the Communist’s party we cannot avoid the ideological mentality of the party seeking to combat capitalist, exploitation and in-equality for the workers, and the very nature of European system on promoting financial crisis. Due to this, we can’t see the Communist party promoting the current path of European integration and wherever it is heading. This is because in doing so, they would promote the very thing they seek to combat. We can assume that as in the principal perception of EU, the Communist party seeks to unite the European Communist’s into a single powerful group to combat the promotion of capitalism and fascism in Europe. Although this can’t be achieved with the current system of the European Union. Thus, the belief in future integration of the European community would be not by the EU engineers design, but by a completely separate one. As the party describes: “…in a period of opposition to the EU should have acquired a radical content and led to the rejection of the capitalist development path itself which goes hand in hand with the our country’s participation in inter-state imperialist alliances, which are always formed on the basis of the unequal relations between states”⁷⁵.

Indication: 1). Principal – Agree; 2). Practice – Disagree; 3). Future – Disagree.

Panheliemic socialist movement (PASOK)

• Principal: PASOK describes its vision of Greek politics without foreign intervention⁷⁶. In relation to the idea of European integration, it would seemingly come into conflict. Still, PASOK defines the EU integration as benefiting to the regions neighboring Greece, and thus proving the ability to implement state benefiting policies. Although PASOK was very critical⁷⁷ of the European Economic Community (during the Greek transition from a military dictatorship), it later enforced the Greek participation in the EC integration and refurnished its political views to better suit Greek political atmosphere of that time period⁷⁸. Because of this, PASOK’s view of ongoing European integration was somewhat positive (as in positive for the South European region). This still goes into conflict with PASOK’s views of “Greece belongs to the Greeks” and further disregard to ‘foreign intervention’ that may be coming from Greece’s participation in the European Union. None the less, PASOK’s view, judging by its current ideals and goals described by the party itself, are in favor of the idea of European integration.

• Practice: How a certain party sees current balance of national and supranational (EU) institutions is always an important question to ask, especially with a party such as Panheliemic Socialist Movement (PASOK). With the Greek debt crisis being an over present issue in Greek politics, the question of how should Greece negotiate with EU retains its importance in trying to see how a party sees current power balance with EU institutions. PASOK’s party leader Fofi Gennimata expresses the importance of Greece remaining in negotiations with EU on the term of financial aid (bailout) as it is imperative for the country to remain in the euro zone and to sustain stability within the union⁷⁹. This PASOK’s leadership expression of importance in negotiating with EU institutions is described as “…a big yes to Europe and a big yes to the euro”⁸⁰. This shows that the party leadership in seeking in not only remaining in the union and the Eurozone, but also saving Greece’s place within the European Union and retaining its economic/political obligations. Because of this, PASOK’s leadership sees the current balance of power with EU institutions as an important part of recovering Greek economic prosperity and sustaining beneficial relations with EU vis-à-vis Greece being a part of Europe. This comes in relation of the first bailout agreement being signed by a PASOK formed Greek government back in 2010⁸¹. Still, with PASOK’s major loss in the last Greek elections of 2015 to seemingly eurosceptic parties may in turn force the party to stronger agitate its support of EU⁸². Although the party denied its backing of the ruling SYRIZA (back in August of 2015) in regards on accepting another EU bailout (which could indicate disapproval of EU oversight)⁸³, it later agreed on backing new austerity measures in hopes of securing another critical financial aid, indicating a turn-around,⁸⁴.

• Future: As indicative of PASOK’s view on the principal part of EU integration, same indications can be noticed being applied to the future principal – as for example the importance that PASOK grants to Greece staying not only as a member of EU, but also a member of the euro zone (retaining Greece as a part of modern Europe). In its strategy for growth, PASOK underlines the importance of creating and improving the European framework for regulation and supervision of markets⁸⁵. This indication of EU importance not only for Greece’s development, but also for the whole European region shows the weight that PASOK grants on being a part of the future of integration. The importance that PASOK’s views give on creating and managing a wider and more inclusive European network, shows that furthering the integration process, in the party’s views, is not as unavoidable, but rather mandatory for Greece and its neighbors. Still, the party expresses the obstacle of current EU monetary policies in regards of Greek recovery and seeks to “change associations in Europe” indicating that the current course of EU integrational policies requires revision⁸⁶.

Indication: 1). Principal – Agree; 2). Practice – Agree; 3). Future – Agree.

Golden dawn

• Principal: Golden Dawn is a strongly nationalistic party, which comes in conflict with the idea of multinationalism promoted by the EU (a part of the European integration process). To this Golden Dawn’s perspective is to “…shake the foundations of the EU…”⁸⁷. In relation to the party being strongly social nationalistic/semi-fascist⁸⁸, the promotion of not only national identity, but also the aggressive take upon supranational multinationalism promoted by EU is opposite to what the principal idea of EU integration is about. Golden Dawn’s party program often stresses the importance for Greece to become a free state and stop being a protectorate of foreign powers⁸⁹. This comes across as aimed at the principle idea of European integration and fully discourages and disagrees with the importance of past/current European integration led by the Western European powers. To add to this, the EU motto of ‘United in Diversity’ openly clashes with Golden Dawn’s strong nationalist beliefs, so to say that this party believes in EU would come in conflict with the party identity. Golden Dawn sees Greece’s entrance in the European Union and the euro zone as utterly destructive decision for the Greek economy and its people⁹⁰. Due to this, Golden Dawn could not be seen supporting the principal idea of European integration conducted in the European Community (EU).

• Practice: Golden Dawn’s policy of denouncing the European Union and seeking to ‘liberate’ Greece from it, we do not hope to see much positivity on how this party considers EU institutions and current power balance for Greece within the union. Golden Dawn sees European elites sitting in Brussels as ‘criminals’⁹¹, and to this we can indicate that the party strongly disapproves of EU institutions and their policy being a factor in Greek politics. As presented previously in the principal section, Golden Dawn seeks to reinforce nationalism in Greece and sees the European Union as the reason for all current Greek financial problems. Thus, appeasement of EU institutions is not a goal for Golden Dawn, but rather the opposite – firm disapproval. Golden Dawn strong nationalism, which often results in uses of violence, can be seen clashing with the European idea of promoting peace and unity through democratic means⁹². Even though Golden Dawn has seats in the European Parliament⁹³, the party did not receive much support from other EP far-right parties and seems to purely spread its disapproval of EU. It is hard not to say that Golden Dawn is solely aimed against EU when it’s party program so often and strongly references disapproval or “hate” for EU as a whole⁹⁴. Thus, the practice principal of working with EU institutions and balancing the power between supranational and national levels can be seen by Golden Dawn as actions that should be avoided and rejected.

• Future: When trying to determine Golden Dawn’s view on the future principal of the European Union, it is unavoidable to disregard their strong position on current EU affairs and the union itself as described in principal and practice sections. A strong nationalizing party movement, that is this party, often capitalizes on pro-nationalistic rhetoric when addressing not only the Greek ‘soverenity’, but also the recent refuge influx into Europe⁹⁵. This kind of rhetoric criticizes EU not for the sake of EU reform, but more for the sake of refusal to participate in conduction of EU policy. As many other parties previously discussed seek to reform the European Union in their own way, Golden Dawn seeks more to cut all major ties with it⁹⁶. To this we can see that Golden Down does not seek to participate in the EU as it seeks to ‘liberate’ Greece from it.

Indication: 1). Principal – Disagree; 2). Practice – Disagree; 3). Future – Disagree.

Independent Greeks

• Principal: Independent Greeks party declared in their 2012 ‘Founding Declaration’ that their political stance if for united Europe, which is combined of equal sovereign member states⁹⁷. Even though the party criticizes EU for denying independence which leads to international isolation and denial of other possible alliances, the belief in the principal idea of European integration is seen here as it fits the willingness and belief in the cooperation of European states for prosperity and security⁹⁸. The biggest concern about the principal idea can be seen as the EU’s strong interconnectivity, which often leads states (as Greece) to question their soverenity as a nation within the union. Still, the integration process is being seen positively not only for Greece, but for the entire European continent⁹⁹. To this the Independent Greeks party views tend to favor integration instead of state isolation – as does the Golden Dawn pol. Party. Independent Greeks are seen to support the unification process of European countries, although stressing at the same time the importance of such unification to remain centered on sovereign nation states standing as equals rather than subordinates.

• Practice: Independent Greeks party often sees the EU institutions as over-oppressive in their “…harsh, restrictive policies…” directed to Greece (Greek debt crisis)¹⁰⁰. In his speech party chairman Panos Kammenos expressed that the party support the European Union and its institutions only if the union is based on equal cooperation of member states and the respect of national institutions is on the same level as supranational EU ones¹⁰¹. At the current state, EU is described as “…nothing but an autocracy, which sells off the economies of other member states…”¹⁰². This indicates, that although Independent Greeks generally belief in the European integration or the principal idea and its benefits, the current state of power balance between EU and its member states negatively impacts its members (such as Greece). To this Independent Greeks tend to express their concern as they see Greece being used and underpowered by entities such as the Troika (when dealing with Greek debt crisis).

• Future: When talking about Independent Greeks views on the future of the European Union, in their official political rhetoric, the party leadership does not single out EU as being the only future partner of Greece, but rather encourages that Greece should look not only to the West, but also to the East¹⁰³. This shows us that EU is not being single out as the only future partner of the Greek people and that the European integration is not the ‘only choice’ for strategic partnership. One of the main issues that is of concern to the Independent Greeks is Germany’s domination of the European Union and its policies¹⁰⁴. Germany is seen in the eyes of Independent Greeks treating Greeks “…not as its partner, but as its master”. Germany being one of the major players in European politics, this can be of concern to states such as Greece. This is because when dealing with the future principal of the European integration, Independent Greeks seeks equal partnership for Greece with other European partners and not subjugation by one. This makes it to question the way that EU may be heading – not one of multiple independent states, but rather one dominated by a single state (Germany). This puts Independent Greeks party to not agree on cooperation with any pro-bailout political party, because it makes it seem that Greece and its interests are being sold. Panos Kammenos expressed his party views that Greece is not willing to leave the euro zone, even if the further bailout deals would fall through¹⁰⁵. One important thing to mention – even though Independent Greeks seek to remain a part of EU, if Greece would be left behind alone in the crisis, certain measures would be taken to make EU suffer for it¹⁰⁶. The willingness for Greece to be taken seriously is quite present in Independent Greeks leadership views as the party would be willing to leave the government rather than supporting a new ‘unfair’ bailout agreement¹⁰⁷. We can see that Independent Greeks current position may be that of willingness to stay in the European Union and participate in the integration process, but at the same time express concerns and critique of the current order of things that is a part of the EU. Mainly EU domination by its large member states and not having the ability to cooperate with far eastern partners such as Russia and China.

Indication: 1) Principal – Agree; 2) Practice –Disagree; 3). Future – Disagree.

Non-parliamentary Greek parties

Union of centrists

• Principal: Union of Centrists openly admits that the European integration is not only beneficial to Greece, but also the entire European continent. This political party views the principal idea of integration as a great path for European development, not only assuring democratic security, but also financial. When Union of Centrists express their views on the idea of European integration, this political party praises the EU for presenting a way of European development that the continent requires¹⁰⁸. This political party not only agrees to support the European Union in its outgoing development, but also seeks to promote the practicality of such integration of European states. Generally, Union of Centrists support the need and the use of European integration in its principal form as it is a way for Europe to progress¹⁰⁹. In addition to this, this political party believes in the need for maintaining solidarity between member states not only in the political unification, but also in financial (euro).

• Practice: Looking into how the Union of Centrists views the current progression of EU and power balance between member states, this political party speaks for maintaining unification of all member states, adoption of proportional electoral system for all EU member states, common polity for all member states (trade, tourism, rural development, pension) and financial solidarity. When other parties, such as SYRIZA¹¹⁰, seeks to oppose the growing power of EU institutions, Union of Centrists seem to seek its enforcement if a form of an ever closer union. When addressing the Greek debt crisis, the Union of Centrist seek Greece to be viewed as a compliant EU member - when dealing with EU and IMF policy enforcement¹¹¹. This political party seeks the adoption of a European Constitution, addressing that its previous failed adoption (in the year 2004) was delayed due to other EU members¹¹². This signals that this party seeks further integration of the European Union, which may take form of stronger EU institutions enforcing a common policy in a form of a constitution and uniform policy making. We also cannot notice large opposition to EU institutions as the party indicates its position of EU institutional growth. Noticeable element to explain this party’s promotion of ever closer EU (economically, diplomatically and militarily) is to create a counter-weigh to the United States. In sum: Union of Centrists seeks to great an EU superpower state by means of closer unification and integration. This indicates that this party seeks not only a stronger EU institutional base, but also is in an agreement of its current practice (promoting even closer integration).

• Future: As this party seeks the European Union to become a new super state (in the practice section) and for Greece to be viewed as a compliant EU state, this shows that Union of Centrist believe in the future of the union taking a more unified form. The only requirements from the EU that this party seeks is for EU to continue strengthening EU’s democratic, financial and political values in the form of further member state integration into a single economic, political and even military union, and inclusion of other countries as Russia in the future union development. Its major deviation for other parties, such as Independent Greekss is that Union of Centrists view Russia being a part of future EU integration¹¹³. This political party does not seek to leave the EU. On the opposite, it seeks Greece to be integrated at a larger level. Union of Centrists believes that staying in the union and the euro – a way for Greece to reform and rebuild a stronger nation within Europe¹¹⁴. This political comes across as a slightly more EU patriotic party that others previously described. It does not see the future of EU being ‘reformed’ (in a form of Intergovernmentalism) as it sees it being pushed more forward (supranationalism).

Indication: 1). Principal –Agree; 2). Practice –Agree; 3). Future – Agree.

Movement of democratic socialists (KIDISO)

• Principal: Although agreeing on the principal benefits of European integrations, like parties such as SYRIZA and PASOK, KIDISO, on one hand stating that integration in beneficial, blames the principal idea of economic integration as the cause for current Greek financial problems¹¹⁵. KIDISO in its ‘Founding Declaration’ state’s that though European integration is promising, it fails at providing a stable economic cooperation sphere for different national markets (euro)¹¹⁶. This party being formed out of parts of Panheliemic Socialist Movement, it shares similar traits when regarding the principal view of European integration. Similarly to PASOK, KIDISO views EU as a promising platform for regional cooperation. KIDISO views EU’s contribution towards Europe of peace, solidarity and protection democratic states form of rule. This is how the Movement of Democratic Socialists attributes the benefits of the European project. When dealing with economic integration of EU, KIDISO is quite skeptical. Although with EU providing economic integration in a form of the euro, it lets national markets to become susceptible to crisis by interdependence of national economies. Generally cooperative European integration is agreed upon by KIDISO, but its endorsement of further political/economic integrations (making member states more susceptible to a global crisis) paves the way for disaster. It seems that KIDISO views more problems related to economic part of EU integration rather that purely political.

• Practice: KIDISO critiques EU for labeling members as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ states instead of recognizing the imperfections of the union when it comes to dealing with union wide problems i.e. the world financial crisis¹¹⁷. This political party also views EU and its policies being responsible for Greece and other EU member states economic problems during the world financial crisis – citing that does not have the ability to play a decisive role in the European development. KIDISO views current EU power balance being more dominated by single member states rather than going on a path of EU structure democratization¹¹⁸. KIDISO’s main critique of current form of EU is that the union is so weak, not democratic enough (for all its members) and to overcomplicated (in its form) to be an effective instrument of solving national and regional problems. Majority of rhetoric revolves around on EU not being democratic enough and ruled ‘by the strong’ rather than by the many. KIDISO blames EU’s austerity policies across EU threatening to consolidate a long period of recession and unemployment.

• Future: KIDOS describes EU currently as ‘being at a crossroad’,¹¹⁹. When talking about the future principal of EU, KIDISO seeks the union to be further reformed so that member solidarity would be protected and future economic crisis would be prevented. It does not see EU being more closely integrated. On the opposite, KIDISO’ goals are to see EU as a union of sovereign states where non state would dominate over the other. This political party expresses major concerns about the future towards which EU is headed. If EU will not change its course, it will only cause problems to its member states¹²⁰.

Indication: 1). Principal – Agree; 2). Practice –Disagree; 3). Future –Disagree.

Now that we have evaluated Greek Parliamentary parties Perceptions of EU by factors of agreement or disagreement to three principals of European integration, these parties can be placed within a graph following S. Vassilopoulos’s methodology of evaluating party views on the European Union to better visually present their attitudes (Figure 6):

Figure 6: Graphical representation of party’s EU perceptions.

Following discovered perception of EU, we group discussed parties into the three tiers of Euroscepticism [8,9]. These tiers indicate the level of possible compliance towards EU and will aid in future sections of this paper:

• Compromising parties: Union of Centrists, The River, New Democracy, Panheliemic Socialist Movement (PASOK).

• Conditional parties: SYRIZA, Independent Greeks, Movement of Democratic Socialists, Communist party.

• Rejectionist parties: Golden Dawn.

Measuring level of critique

In the previous chapter we have discussed how each of Greek parliamentary parties perceive EU and its ongoing integration. Each party’s views of EU were detailed in 3 principal views: 1). Principal; 2). Practice; 3). Future. In this chapter we will seek to measure levels of Euroscepticism of each party following [13,14] methodology of Soft/ Hard Euroscepticism. The goal of this section will be to place each of Greek parliamentary party’s in their coinciding camps of measured levels of Euroscepticism and label them according to Mudde and Kopecky’s [6] levels of expressed Euroscepticism.

Soft Euroscepticism

SYRIZA: As we summed up in the ‘Perception of EU’ part of this paper, SYRIZA agrees with the principal idea of the European integration, but disagrees with the practice and future principals of EU’s development. Due to this SYRIZA cannot be seen as a strong anti-EU party due to the party itself not advocating absolute and unconditional separation from the European Union. The party’s leftist Euroscepticism had remained intact since the Greek financial crisis. Hence, Syriza had sufficiently maintained a similar stance on EU and had only shifted its arguments to align with its political goals and critique of EU¹²¹. Soft Eurosceptic parties tend to resemble acceptance towards EU, but with a degree with critique in favor of disagreement with the course that EU is taking or current attitudes towards policies/ other member of EU (Taggart; 1998). SYRIZA’s leader Tsipras even stated, that SYRIZA is not an anti-EU political party, thus, the party wants to stay in EU and does not advocate unconditional separation (which would be seen in more radical parties such as Golden Dawn)¹²². Due to this, we need to consider this party resembling a softer, rather than harsher, shade of Euroscepticism. We simply can’t be considering SYRIZA to be in any form a Hard Eurosceptic party according to Taggart’s and Sczerbiak’s measurement methodology, because for this to be true, this political party would take upon itself a more aggressive rhetoric when addressing EU rather than supporting the idea of EU with levels of critique.

When trying to label types of eurosceptic expressions of SYRIZA, we need to first state that, the party itself started to gain large momentum in Greek votes since 2012 (16%) continuing till 2015 (35%-37%)¹²³, where it overtook the previously leading parties such as PASOK and New Democracy. This can be attributed to the rising disillusionment of the Greek people due to harsh EU bailout conditions, which favored parties promoting opposition towards EU¹²⁴ – such as SYRIZA. This political party often used issues such as the debt crisis and lack of investment in Greece to promote its opposition towards EU institution (their decision to impose bailouts with their terms) and other EU member stances on Greek financial policies (such as Germany’s)¹²⁵. This resembles Euro-pessimists stance according to Mudde and Kopecky¹²⁶. This political party, while not” religiously promoting EU”, take upon a stance of criticizing the current path and form that the European Union is taking. In this party’s rhetoric of EU, certain disagreements like: 1). Power balance between EU members¹²⁷; 2). EU harsh fiscal austerity policies regarding Greek debt crisis¹²⁸; 3). Greece’s place within the union, - indicate not an optimistic view of EU, but rather a pessimistic one which seeks to reform the current order within the union agitating that the current form of EU is not what it should be. Although, the party had experienced a split of its member regarding what course of action should the party take when accepting/rejecting EU financial bailout funds¹²⁹. This in turn indicates, that part of the party is beginning to split into Euro-optimist, believing that Greece should follow EU’s guidance. Taking into consideration the nature of SYRIZA being a coalition of parties, it is quite possible for the party to represent semi-different views on certain aspects of party policy [15,16]. Still, SYRIZA is best known for taking anti-austerity stance when negotiating EU bailout funds. Though, the possibility of elements within the party to change their beliefs (due to changing political landscapes) can indicate the levels of compromising.

SYRIZA also most closely resembles Eurorealist beliefs with the party generally believing in the project of European Integration, but at the same time being dissatisfied with its current heading i.e. EU’s behavior towards Greece and imposed austerity measures¹³⁰. SYRIZA does not agitate Greece leaving the European Union. On the contrary, it advocates Greece not only remaining the part of the union, but also the euro zone – as the party recognizes the financial benefits of Greece remaining an EU state.. It seeks to renegotiate how Greece is being treated within the EU (in relation to the states debt crisis) and generally supports future cooperation of the European nations. Main objection of SYRIZA directed towards EU is the levels of austerity imposed over the state. The party seeks to fight and negotiate with EU, but does not seek to straight forwardly leave it.

Though, we may also see elements of eurocynic behavior in parts of the party. The recently split up faction of SYRIZA called ‘The Popular Unity party’, opposite to Tsipras, would grandly leave the euro if needed and would commit further steps of securing Greece’s interests.¹³¹When such parts of SYRIZA split up in their political rhetoric (for example regarding the euro), contrary to the rhetoric of the party leadership¹³², it indicates certain division within the party, which may resemble different labels of Euroscepticism, hence - the division. Thus, because such being a result of division within the party, it does not let us label the whole party with the same label.

SYRIZA resembles a softer form of Euroscepticism. Not as drastic as a fully anti-EU party and not as enthusiastic as per-se Europhile party, SYRIZA implies negotiation with the European Union, criticizing its current policies and ‘path’, but not seeking to cut off all ties (political and financial) as remaining in the union for SYRIZA outweighs the benefits of leaving it.

Characterization – Soft Euroscepticism with Euro-pessimist and Eurorealist expressions.

Independent Greeks: As we summed up in the ‘Perception of EU’ part of this paper, the Independent Greeks (similar to SYRIZA on the need and benefits of EU’s integration), agrees with the principal idea of EU, but disagrees with the practice and future principals. This also places the Independent Greeks in the Soft Euroscepticism camp of Euroscepticism. Independent Greeks express similar concern on current EU bailout policies and EU oversight of Greece as SYRIZA¹³³. Adding to this, the party is also in a coalition government with SYRIZA¹³⁴. By both parties acting in a united coalitions, similarities are to be noticed: Independent Greeks value the idea of European integration as a positive thing, but have concerns on how it is shaped at this current time¹³⁵. Similar to SYRIZA, Independent Greeks express disapproval of members of EU (such as Germany) dominating the European Union’s power balance¹³⁶. This political party (in their states election and party goals), express the willingness to ‘guide EU to its purpose’, not agitating the dissolution of the union, but on the contrary – the reformation and rethinking¹³⁷. Independent Greeks also do not seek for Greece to leave the European Union or the euro - if it is not a last resort for the state. This political party, same as SYRIZA, is willing, if needed, to negotiate and even compromise with the European Union on implying austerity measures to Greece in order to maintain Greece’s place in the union¹³⁸.

Due to the party generally agreeing with the idea of closer European integration, but expressing its concerns on how the union is perceived and formed now, we cannot label this party as a Hard Eurosceptic party. Independent Greeks lack the radicalism and full disapproval of EU that an anti-EU party would resemble. We also cannot label this party as a pro-European party due to its commitment to strongly oppose the European institutions and to ‘fight’ the EU itself (in a partnership with SYRIZA) on Greek bailout policies, agitating that such policies are “harsh and unfair”. If we were to place Independent Greeks in a camp of Euroscepticism, it would fit perfectly in the camp of Soft Euroscepticism.

When trying to label the levels of expressed Euroscepticism within the Independent Greeks political party, we come across the label of Euro-pessimists to be most fitting. Although we could see this political party resembling elements of Europhobes, the general party belief of the positivity of EU integration (rather than opposition to it) retains it more as a pessimistic party with realistic tendencies. In addition to this, the party’s agreement on the purpose and benefits of EU integration, at the same time critiquing how it is conducted, does not allow us to label this party Euroenthusiastic – as such party would resemble higher levels of acceptance in regards to EU policies/decisions.

Independent Greeks often express the beneficial thinking about Greece participating in the European integration, but at the same time raising concerns on how it is progressing at this moment¹³⁹. In party’s official political program the party describes itself as generally believing in the European Union, but stating that it is not functioning as it is supposed to¹⁴⁰. Similar to SYRIZA, Independent Greeks express displeasement with few EU members similarly being seen as the dominant powers in EU decision making vis-a-vi Germany. Independent Greeks tend to view Greek bailout crisis realistically and view the involvement of EU institutions pessimistically (as damaging to the Greek people). Thus, Independent Greeks party views of the course of EU is rather optimistic, but expresses with realistic views. We could assume that this party is only seeking to receive benefits from EU by Greece’s participation in the union, acting as a Eurocynic party, but the party’s acceptance of integration ideals do not allow us to label it as such. Due to this conception, Independent Greeks resemble Eurorealists elements.

Characterization – Soft Euroscepticism with Euro-pessimist and Eurorealist expressions.

Movement of democratic socialists (KIDISO): The Movement of Democratic Socialists, as a party split from elements of PASOK, it does not share the same stance on the EU. As described in the Perception of EU section, Movement of Democratic Socialist are more tend to critique – indicative of the initial split from PASOK. This political party, similar to PASOK, agrees on the principal idea of EU integration, but it splinters regarding current and future principals of EU’s integration process. When attempting to place this party in a camp of Euroscepticism, it resembles a softer form of Euroscepticism. Although active in its critique of current EU and how it is responsible for the economic hardship that Greece had received and the current EU’s domination by some of its stronger members¹⁴¹, this political party cannot be considered a true Hard Eurosceptic party. This is because it does not agitate Greece’s withdrawal from the union, but rather acceptance and reform of its flawlessness¹⁴². Though strong its expressed blame towards the European Union and its institutions, this political party seeks more reform and revision of the union, not Greece’s absence from it. Its major critique is aimed at that what EU had become instead of what if should have. Party’s acceptance of EU’s integration, but disapproval of its current action and form resembles a softer form of Euroscepticism, not hard or pro-EU position.

When attempting to label Euroscepticism of Movement of Democratic Socialists, this party is best seen as a Euro-pessimist party. Opposite to Euro-optimists, who would broadly accept how EU’s integration is progressing, Euro-pessimists see the European Union not functioning as was intended. This applies to Movement of Democratic Socialist, because this political party disagrees how EU is currently functioning (blaming for the Greek debt crisis)¹⁴³ and does not tend to broadly accept it. This political party sees EU as flawed from its initial way of handling the progression of the union¹⁴⁴. It does not see EU developing in a ‘positive manner’. Movement of Democratic Socialists also falls under a label of Eurorealists. As at the same time accepting the EU for what it is and criticizing for what it is not, this political party expresses a realist Eurosceptic view of the European Union. Differentiating from Euroenthusiasts, this party’s realist take on EU, and what is has become, is more resembling a Eurorealist label of Euroscepticism. This is because this party does not seek the union to progress further on its current track without revisiting the issues that made it flawed at the first place. This forces this party to point out EU’s flaws in a softer form of Euroscepticism.

Characterization – Soft Euroscepticism with Euro-optimist and Eurorealist expressions.

New democracy: New Democracy is strongly supporting European integration and the European project as a whole, but not on a level that would allow us to classify it as a completely pro-European party¹⁴⁵ but rather as a party seeking to compromise with the European Union. This political party views the European Union as not only a way to ensure peace in Europe, but also to promote democracy. Still, even though in its Perception of EU this party could be viewed as a borderline pro-EU party [3], it is important to indicate if it expresses levels of Euroscepticism, (taking into account its views on principal, practice and future ideas of EU) as it tend to resemble form of Soft Euroscepticism. New Democracy, although seeking to secure Greece’s future in the EU, as told by the party’s leader Meimarakis, this political party is not fully pro-European. Yes, this party tends to oppose a clearly eurosceptic governmental party of SYRIZA, but it still acknowledges EU’s shortcomings. This places the party in a questionable position. On one hand it seeks to strengthen Greece’s place in the European Union. On the other, it wishes for EU to change (as to become more democratic and equal for all its members). Still, due to the fact that New Democracy is acting as a main opposition party to SYRIZA’s government¹⁴⁶ and shifted opposition to previous cases of EU provided bailout¹⁴⁷, can be regarded as actions taken to oppose a Soft-Eurosceptic government. In such case, regarding New Democracy’s perception of EU, it is better to place this party in a camp of Soft Euroscepticism, as to provide the meaning to its expressed disapproval. This does not prohibits us, however, to label noticeably eurosceptic expressions that this party may resemble.

Although New Democracy is quite positive of current EU’s development, it still express’s slight disapproval of it¹⁴⁸. Though it generally accepts EU’s development, it is not on the level that would be resembling a Euro-pessimist or a Europhobic. New democracy’s willingness to go on with EU’s integration and Greece’s future in the union is indicative of a Europhile. Because Europhiles are committed to the ideas of integration and progression underlined by the European Union, these groups are still considered to be Europhile even though they may object to certain aspects of such integration policy. In the case of this party, it mainly seeks EU to become ‘more democratic’, but is not demanding major change of the union and its institutions. It cannot be viewed as a Euro-optimist, because it does not completely view current European integration progressing fully in a positive manner. In addition to this, New Democracy is indicative of a Euroenthusiasts behavior due to its stance on European integration and awareness of the reality of such integrational development, while at the same time seeking such integration to continue.

Characterization – Soft Euroscepticism (borderline pro-EU) with Europhile and Euroenthusiastic expressions.

Panheliemic Socialist Movement (PASOK): PASOK’s initial view of the European Economic Community was somewhat critical, but later changed to a view towards EU, which can be described as positive¹⁴⁹. Still, PASOK regards current EU’s monetary and macroeconomic policy as an obstacle for Greece¹⁵⁰. The problem lies with the fact that PASOK promotes the benefits that EU provides for Greece, but at the same time views EU’s policy as being flawed and maintains party’s position of “Greece for Greeks” and “…without foreign dependencies, influences and interventions…”¹⁵¹ seeking to influence the current heading of the union. Looking into the goals of this party, we cannot really see it as truly pro-European party and similar to New Democracy regard is as a compromising party. PASOK may be publicly regarded as a pro-EU party, but still resemble elements of soft-Euroscepticism. As soft-Eurosceptic parties are more vocal in their critical attitude towards EU, such attitude may be caused only by displeasement of current EU policies. This attitude would mostly be seen in the opposition parties of Greece [4] and taking into account PASOK’s stance (both positive and critical) on the European Union, it would explain it being seen as a pro- EU party. Due to this, PASOK fits in a camp of Soft-Euroscepticism rather than being seen outside of it.

When attempting to label PASOK’s expressions towards EU, we come to see resemblance of Euro-optimists. The party regards EU’s function for Europe in a positive manner and accepts integration on a broad scale, mainly criticizing its current monetary policies. Although we could label this party as a Euro-pessimist, regarding its critique of EU monetary policies, but that would require PASOK to also believe that current European integration is not functioning properly and will not change in the near future. To this Euro-optimist label is more fitting, because when regarding PASOK’s rhetoric of EU integration it is viewed in a positive manner not only for Greece, but also for its neighboring region. In addition to this, PASOK’s political stance towards EU resembles a Eurorealistview. Because Eurorealists believe in the ideals of EU and what the union ‘should be’, they currently see the union failing to enact such ideals. As PASOK expresses positivity towards EU’s ideal, the party currently sees it being flawed in some part. Although Euroenthusiasts would be also aware of EU’s reality, they would more see it as a natural progression of European integration, rather than its flaw [6]. To this PASOK is both positive of current EU integration and critical of its policies, more as monetary policies towards Greece.

Camp – Soft Euroscepticism with Euro-optimist and Eurorealist expressions.

Hard Euroscepticism

Golden Dawn: Golden Dawn is can be described as a strongly ideological far-right eurosceptic party (Flood; 1996) due to its ideological beliefs¹⁵². As we described in the ‘Perception of EU’ section of this paper, this political party is widely against the European Union not only based on economic integration, but also political in a form of pool of sovereignty. As a nationalist party, Golden Dawn described itself ‘fighting’ against the European Union and what it stands for. Not only criticizing the current path of EU integration this political party disagrees with the idea of European integration completely – stating that it is harmful to the Greek state. As this party (previously described) does not believe in the idea of EU integration¹⁵³, which is more common for Soft-Eurosceptic parties, Golden Dawn mostly can be viewed only as a party belonging to the camp of Hard-Euroscepticism. As a party with softer critique of EU would gradually accept the Greece’s benefits of being an EU member state, Golden Dawn states that the nation should not only leave the European Union, but also completely separate itself from such unions – as they pose danger to the national identity and policy independence of the state. As we cannot label this party as a soft eurosceptic party, we also cannot place it as a Pro-European party, because that would contradict itself. Thus, Golden Dawn’s perception of EU completely resembling disapproval, its placement in the camp Hard-Euroscepticism fits perfectly with the party’s beliefs and standpoint on the EU project.

When attempting to label the expressions of Euroscepticism in Golden Dawn, we need to disregard the pro-European labels (due to the party’s belonging to the camp of Hard-Euroscepticism). Though we could label this party as Euro-pessimist, it would require a party to criticize the current development of EU, which would also require a level of acceptance towards integration. This cannot be applied to the Golden Dawn, because this party does not seek to change current European integration (by still remaining a part of it), it seeks to ‘cut away from it’. As this party completely rejects EU, it is most resemble of a strong Europhobe party, where the label of Europhobe is best fitting to describe the party as it utterly denies the benefits of integration relatively to a nation state. Although this would be also applied to Eurocynics, which would also openly reject the idea of European integration, Golden Dawn’s disapproval of any level of participation (by staying in the union) and goals for creating a closed economic sphere¹⁵⁴, are more resembling of a Eurosceptic label. As such label, opposite to Eurocynic would not seek to benefit of Greece staying in the union when at the same time criticizing it. Eurosceptics tend not only to disregard the European integration, but also seek to avoid any and all participation of the state in such events.

Characterization – Hard Euroscepticism with Euro-pessimist and Eurosceptic expressions.

The communist party: The Communist party of Greece is a party, which bases its beliefs in a far-left of the ideological spectrum. Differently than more left/right-wing parties, this political party has strong ideological beliefs it promotes not only its political rhetoric, but also the party’s goals¹⁵⁵. The perception of EU element of this party, presented in the Perception of EU section, cannot be described as positive, nor can it be described as utterly negative on the same degree as the Golden Dawn party. Although similar to Golden Dawn, the Communist party completely criticizes the European Union, its institutions and what it promotes¹⁵⁶ (capitalism), it regards to the European integration more positively, but not as it is in its current form. Still, this value cannotbe mistaken for promoting current European values (as it promotes capitalism). The Communist party, though sees the EU negatively, it understands the benefits of such integration in promoting and uniting the European communists¹⁵⁷. We can claim, that this party’s views are more strongly effected by its far-left ideology, thus, such ideology comes in direct conflict when comparing it to other softer Greek eurosceptic parties. Its harsh critique of not only of what the EU promotes, but also how it acts, does not left us to label it as a Soft Eurosceptic party. For us to be able to do that, the Communist party would be required to agree with the current principal of European integration, not what it should be (integration promoting and uniting communist parties of whole Europe). Due to this, this political party falls closer to the camp of Hard Euroscepticism. This is due to the facts that this party openly stands against the ideals promoted by current EU integration i.e. capitalist economy. Because Hard Eurosceptic parties resemble a stronger form of opposition towards EU - they seek to redefine it completely in their way (P. Wilde; 2014). Softer eurosceptic parties tend to be more negotiating or reforming, acting on the principal and goals of integration already established. Although agreeing on a small level with European integration, its specific view of such integration does not allow us to place the Communist Party of Greece in the camp of Soft Euroscepticism.

When attempting to label the expressions of Euroscepticism in the Communist Party of Greece, the easiest way would be to label this party as Europhobic and Eurosceptic party. Still, the Communist party is not a completely Europhobic party, because such a party would not agree on any level with the principal ideas of European integration. On the other hand, a Euro-pessimist party would criticize EU’s development for not functioning as it should be in a strategic sense of development. The Communist party wishes EU to function on a purpose of uniting European Communist parties (not as it is now) and, although trying to ‘fight’ the European institutions (on a subject of Greece’s debt), it labels it more as a ‘fight for the people’ of Greece –wishing them to inforce socialist ideal¹⁵⁸. When trying to label such actions Eurocynic label seems to be more fitting. Such party would non-negotiably tend to defy the European integration and EU itself, seeking to completely cut all ties of Greece to such the union of states. Still, the Communist party, although at a first glance acting in such manner, is more willing to completely critique the EU on the same time seeking to benefit from such a union for its own purposes – enabling the ’people’ to fight the EU, not force Greece to leave it¹⁵⁹. Due to this a Euro- pessimist and Eurocynic labels are more fitting rather than a Eurosceptic and Europhobe.

Characterization – Hard Euroscepticism with Europhobe and Eurocynic expressions.

Strong EU optimists

Union of Centrists: Union of Centrists is one of the most vocal pro-EU party’s judging from its presented policy and current stance on EU’s integration and current path. Differentiating from other soft eurosceptic parties, Union of Centrists does not actively oppose the European Union and its institutions. On the other hand, it seeks for those institutions and the union itself to progress even more following its current path of development¹⁶⁰. Due this party presenting explicit agreement with all principal, practice and future elements of EU’s perception it cannot be easily placed in a camp of soft or hard Euroscepticism as that would require it to exhibit a specific stance of EU critique and resemble a strong form of opposing rhetoric directed towards the European Union and its institutions. Because of this it is chosen to see this party as a more Euro optimist party, which would align with its current views. Still, this does not prohibit us to label this political party as it would enable us to grade its stance on EU. If a party cannot be placed in a camp of Euroscepticism, it can still be label by its expressions.

When attempting to label Union of Centrists political party according to Kopecky and Mudde [2], it can certainly be seen that this party as a Europhile political party. As Europhile agree to the idea of integration and how it is underlined in its current progression, so does the Union of Centrists. This party does not exhibit large opposition towards the European Union¹⁶¹ and its institutions as an Euro-optimist party would do. In their presented views of EU and its institutions, this political party is very much envisioning a bright future for the European project with a high level of agreement on how it is proceeding currently. As less agreeable parties would approve of EU, they would still tend to opposite much of it - which cannot be easily said for Union of Centrists. This political party has a view of EU that is indicative of a Federal Europe vision¹⁶² or European Federation [17] (stronger political and economic integration), but not as an intergovernmental Europe, which is, as previously noticed, more common for Soft Eurosceptic parties. Due to this, Union of Centrists project upon themselves a Euroenthusiast label which combines within itself Europhobe and Euro-optimist views and attitude towards EU. As Euroenthusiasts, Union of Centrists believes in ideals of current European integration and tend to balance ideals and reality to correspond a degree of acceptance. As this party is aware of current EU flaws, it views them as a byproduct of still ongoing evolution of the union. Regarding EU’s institutions - Union of Centrists believe that by integrating Greece further within the union, it would effectively secure Greece’s future as an EU state. When taking all of these labels into consideration, Union of Centrist can be regarded as a rather EU patriotic party. Not wishing to maintain EU as it is, but rather to build it even further, is rather different from parties that were described previously. This political party can be regarded as a pro-EU party.

Characterization – Pro-European (Euro-optimist) with Europhile and Euroenthusiast expressions.

The River (POTAMI): The River, or POTAMI, is rather a new party in the Greek political arena. Due to this, this party does not have much experience when dealing with the European Union, when compared to other older Greek parties. When dealing with attitude towards EU, POTAMI openly projects itself as a pro-EU party¹⁶³. Due to this, we cannot place it firmly in a camp of soft/hard Euroscepticism and will regard it as a Euro-optimist party. In addition to this, this party will still be labeled as it will present a clearer understand on how this party stands in relation to the European Union.

When attempting to label The River (POTAMI), we still need to take into consideration that this party views itself as a pro-EU party¹⁶⁴. Still, opposite to a party like Union of Centrist, POTAMI views current EU flaws with a greater degree (as discussed in the Perception of EU section). Although POTAMI views current EU as being imperfect, it still regards it as being a necessity for Greece and the best example for current intergovernmental politics in Europe¹⁶⁵. This more realistic and optimistic view of EU is indicative of Euro-optimists. Though Europhiles would also regard EU as great piece of political/economic engineering, Euro-optimist tend to view it more realistically (as imperfect). In addition - POTAMI is more vocal¹⁶⁶ on the subject of ‘change’ that EU requires if it is to be a saving grace for Europe, which puts it farther away from labeling it as a Europhile. Still, this party is not pessimistic enough, on the subject of EU, to label it as a Europessimist. This political party puts much importance of participating in EU’s politics and promoting such participation from the national level. POTAMI often regards the EU politics being as of same importance and national ones. It weights Greece’s participation in the union as a ‘necessity’ and a way of improving Greek livelihood. Similar to Euroenthusiasts, POTAMI believes in the European project and its institutions for being instrumental in achieving greater integration and state participation. Opposite to Eurorealists, POTAMI does not believe that EU is failing to achieve its goals of integrating states just that it requires greater guidance from members to ensure democracy and sovereignty (not to combat EU, but rather to influence it)¹⁶⁷. Thus POTAMI beliefs in the ideals of EU, but regards them realistically in a sense of current EU’s development. This political party’s view of EU being a necessity and the will to oppose anti-EU sentiment in Greece truly shows that this party is more EU-optimistic than eurosceptic¹⁶⁸.

Characterization – Pro-European (Euro-optimist) with Eurooptimist and Euroenthusiastic expressions.

Now that we have identifies each party to its camp of either Euroscepticism or Pro-Europeanism and assigned it a sufficient label according to its stance towards EU, we can place them in a vertical scale of measured Euroscepticism (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Levels of Euroscepticism and expressed attitude towards EU.

Sources of critique

In the previous parts we have indicated how each party sees the European Union (its ideals) and how such views can be labeled in terms of Euroscepticism expression. In this part we will seek to present the main sources that fuel this form of Euroscepticism and how such sources tend to change, which in turn have the ability to change expressions of euro-critique.

To achieve this we will follow Mudde, Rokkan, Lipset and Kopecky [2] arguments of the source of Euroscepticism being ideological or strategic, which will indicate the sources of which these parties base their EU critique. In addition to this, we will correlate it with what we have discovered following S. Vassilopoulos’s methodology of level of compromise that parties can achieve, to better indicate how critique sources of these parties can change.

Strategic Euroscepticism

SYRIZA: As we described SYRIZA in the previous parts of this paper, it expresses conditional attitude towards European integration and belongs to a camp of Soft Euroscepticism. This certainly helps in achieving a perspective look towards the party. SYRIZA defines itself as a party following values of socialism in modern Europe and is open to differing ideological, historical and value-sensitivities¹⁶⁹, still, as described in previous parts of this paper¹⁷⁰, such ideology is not the main object for their critique of the European Union. This party seems to draw its critique of EU from a more strategical thinking. To clarify, SYRIZA is not aimed at spreading socialism to influence capitalist Europe, but rather applies it in their current disapproval of European policy. In ideological camp, a party’s critique of EU would be fueled by its strong focused ideology. On the opposite, in a strategic camp, a party would maintain its ideological identity, but the party policy and action would be subject of change to better suit when dealing with EU. Although SYRIZA in its principals of strategy¹⁷¹ acknowledges the elements of capitalism being a source of suffering in Europe, its current actions as a ruling party negotiating with the European Union seems to indicate a level of strategic conditionality (S. Vassilopoulos). As a party agitating the destructive strategy of capitalism, it is rather willing to condition such views when accepting certain terms of current EU bailout policy for Greece¹⁷². In addition to this, SYRIZA’s strategy of ‘Debt above all else’ indicates not an ideological base of its Euroscepticism, but rather one based on high importance issues depicted in Greece politics173. This is important to note because SYRIZA paved its way into power using the Greek debt crisis and public displeasement of austerity measures as a way to beat the previously two party dominated Greek party system¹⁷⁴. From that point onward SYRIZA used the promise of alternative government and stance against austerity to not only gain support from the Greek people, but also use its policy of fighting for the Greek people to rally support in the Greek parliament and state that was tired of EU’s austerity policies. In a sense SYRIZA became the Greek people’s voice against austerity¹⁷⁵. If SYRIZA’s Euroscepticism would be solely based on party’s ideology, we would see this party expressing the danger that EU poses to the nation state’s identity and serenity (C. Flood; 1996). SYRIZA in this case would critique EU’s values and their posed danger to Greek values (as would be seen in a party such as the Communist party of Golden Dawn). This is important to also note, because a previously small outsider party such as SYRIZA (favorable of EU’s integrational ideals), had managed to rise into power closely following the financial crisis that hit Europe and further resulted in Greek debt crisis. Not utilizing the public ideological support that opposed the EU’s integrational policy. Due to this, it is hard not to link SYRIZA’s rise with the popularity of anti-EU sentiment (due to austerity) in Greece’s polity, rather than its rise due to ideological support from the voter base. Thus, strategic use of Euroscepticism, rather one of ideological basis, is indicative of this party, because a party that belongs to a strategic camp would use such events to grow its support and would draw Euroscepticism arguments based on current interaction with the European Union. A party that uses Euroscepticism as a strategy is more favorable to gain fast rise of support and come into power in a volatile polity fighting against austerity that is current Greece. On the opposite, a party that uses Euroscepticism on an ideological basis, would require a longer period and a more sustainable ideological shift it the electorate to receive the needed support for a rapid rise. Thus to place SYRIZA in a strategic camp of Euroscepticism is to support the party’s rise to power and its rhetoric of Soft-Euroscepticism¹⁷⁶ as the result of sourcing strategic use of polity contestation issues to suit party’s rise, rhetoric and reach to govern.

Now that we have depicted party’s strategic source of Euroscepticism, we need to note its ability to change. SYRIZA had to drop many of its former commitment that were agitating nationalization and monetary redistribution of the classes¹⁷⁷. It is important, because for a party such as SYRIZA, which campaign for radical change within Greece, to later take upon a more mild compliant stance is to notably acknowledge the party’s conditional Euroscepticism. As previously deducted in Perception of EU, SYRIA resembles a party whose Euroscepticism tends to be conditional. If the party resembles a conditional Euroscepticism, its critique of EU is not absolutely rejective, nor is it absolutely compromising, but rather based on certain conditions that EU and the party must take into consideration for both sides to achieve what each one seeks¹⁷⁸. Because we determined that SYRIZA expresses conditional Soft Euroscepticism which is conducted on a strategic basis, its critique of EU is not absolutely rejective, but rather serves to achieve a purpose set by the party (to gain support and maintain power)¹⁷⁹. Main source of SYRIZA’s Euroscepticism can be viewed as the financial crisis, which served to provide the party with a strategic resource to gain power within the Greece’s polity contestation.

Source of Euroscepticism - Strategic conditional Euroscepticism.

Independent Greeks: Independent Greeks often voice their opposition to the first and second memorandums (Greece’s bailout packages) and oppose imposing harsh EU sanctions on Greece¹⁸⁰. In addition to this, Independent Greeks formed an unlikely coalition with SYRIZA, thus securing parliamentary majority for that party¹⁸¹. This goals along with Independent Greeks rhetoric of calling Germany ‘the Greece’s abuser’ and opposing its dominance of the European Union. Thus, we can start to see a relation here. Not one of ideological Euroscepticism, but rather strategical. As we previously presented, Independent Greeks agree with the principal idea of EU integration and see themselves as a Soft-Eurosceptic party. Although, their major concerns and disapproval of EU is not of debating and critiquing the future of the union itself, but rather its current actions towards Greece and the power balance that exerts between the member states¹⁸². Here we can see that this political party is more focused on dealing with how Greece conducts negotiations with the EU institutions instead of seeking to influence the evolution of the union from an ideological standpoint. Although we can also see Independent Greek’s opposition towards EU on its migratory policy¹⁸³, its main objective, as described by the party¹⁸⁴, is to draw up effective Greek exit from the financial crisis. Strategic Euroscepticism would be useful when dealing with European institutions and their bailout packages to Greece, which seems to be one of the main party objectives. We could see party ideology influencing Independent Greeks rhetoric towards critiquing EU, but that would not be on the same scale that would indicate ideological Euroscepticism. This is because SYRIZA’s and Independent Greeks coalition is described as being ‘anti bailout’ to the core¹⁸⁵, which is more indicative of using current public displeasement towards EU austerity measures to secure a decisive support from the electorate on acting in the negotiations with EU institutions. As this party is also in favor of maintaining Greece a EU and euro member state, such direct attitude towards a described issue in the political debate describes an aimed goal to use it as a strategic instrument in the Greek polity contestation. Still, this party’s opposition towards EU migratory policy (opposing EU citizen integration) could be seen as a sign of ideological Euroscepticism. None the less, as a party mainly acting on opposing the EU bailout polity, it sources its eurosceptic behavior of a strategic camp, while maintaining its ideological stance on EU on the sidelines. By this, we have to primary see this party as a strategic Eurosceptic, and only secondly as ideological.

As we concluded in the first part of this paper (Perception of EU) Independent Greeks resemble a conditional attitude towards EU, this also may apply to its application of its source Euroscepticism. As a party that opposes current EU austerity measures towards Greece, it is rather accepting on maintaining Greece as a EU member state, as long as Greece is treated as an equal partner and with respect. Thus this party is accepting certain EU policies as long as established conditions are meet. As a party that oppose increased migration to Greece, the party establishes that it only opposes it while Greece cannot support it¹⁸⁶. As similar to this, Independent Greeks also oppose EU austerity measures if they fail to sustain Greece’s recovery and growth. Thus this party seeks for certain conditions to be meet before it agrees to move forward.

Source of Euroscepticism – Strategic (primary) with Ideological (secondary): conditional Euroscepticism.

Movement of Democratic Socialists (KIDISO): Movement of Democratic Socialists (KIDISO) attributed critique of the European Union can be defined as disapproval of EU’s economic integration and its susceptibility to a financial crisis. As described in the Perception of EU and later expanded Measuring level of critique, KIDISO forms its anti-EU rhetoric towards its economic policies. Main goal of KIDISO is to seek reformation of the union to fix the flaws that it possess¹⁸⁷. When attempting to source such critique, one cannot ignore the ‘ideological commitment’ that this party examples. Throughout critical of EU, it seeks its vision of integrated Europe. Here comes a crossroad of sourcing this party’s Euroscepticism from ideological or strategic source. Because this party it quite young, only being formed before 2015 elections¹⁸⁸, splitting from its parent party PASOK, this party has yet to be truly established. From what we can gather from official party statements and party declarations, this party seems to be set up due to disagreements of its former PASOK members. As more vocal in their critique of EU than PASOK, this party is mainly aimed at establishing its own party identity aside from its former founder party. Ideologically is expresses the same center-left¹⁸⁹ party position as PASOK, thus when comparing its critique of EU to PASOK’s – it’s seen as a more critical party. If both parties are in the same place of the ideological spectrum, but their views of EU differ highly, it indicates that it may be a cause of strategic Euroscepticism, rather than ideological. As a party split from another party, at the same time resembling same ideology, but differentiating in views of EU, the best explanation would be the use of volatile EU policy problems to suit strategic need within the Greek polity i.e. attempting to capitalize of anti-EU sentiment in Greece. This, in relation to the party’s strong disapproval of EU’s economic policies and blaming them for all the hardship that Greece is suffering now, depicts a picture of a party attempting to attract political support by means of capitalizing on a stance against EU. In addition to this, PASOK does not seek EU to fails, so stating that it’s radically anti-EU party would be false¹⁹⁰. This party seeks more to support the EU project and agitates its reformation, but at the same time takes up a strong stance against it. Thus this indicates that this kind of Euroscepticism, attached to current economic situation within Europe and Greece, is being drawn of a strategic source of Euroscepticism.

In addition to this, this party expresses conditional attitude towards EU, where it seeks certain conditions to be meet before supporting EU any further. These conditions are mainly seen as economic and member power balance issues¹⁹¹. In in turn signifies that the party is not rejective of EU, nor is compromising. This party is in the middle where its stance against EU and expressed Euroscepticism may change on certain conditions (that the party expressed) being meet.

Source of Euroscepticism – Strategic conditional Euroscepticism.

Ideological Euroscepticism

New Democracy: When looking into New Democracy political party, one cannot say this party is utterly anti-European, only completely disagreeing with the future principal of European integration. As this paper is not completely pro-EU. Still, this party expresses its fair share of Euroscepticism, which may not be rejective, but as we previously indicated is of a compromising nature. Thus we need to explain from where this party sources its anti-EU critique. Firstly, New Democracy agrees with both principal and practice principals of European integration and we’ve placed it previously in a camp of Soft Euroscepticism. Although we previously acknowledged that this party began its support of EU since the inception of Greece in the EEC¹⁹², Euroscepticism still exists in this party, though not on a high enough level to truly label it as anti-EU party. New Democracy is not radical enough in its eurosceptic rhetoric against the EU, but still expresses its displeasing on the subject. New Democracy’s Euroscepticism seems to be mainly focused on the party’s views of the European Union and how it acts currently. As a party that critiques EU more for not achieving its true purpose, it resembles anti-EU critique that’s more based in the ideological beliefs of the party¹⁹³, rather than current party contestation. If New Democracy would use anti-EU critique for a strategic purpose, it would be more closely tied to current issues of dealing with Greek debt crisis, not the future development of the union itself. In addition to this, New Democracy is very vocal on securing Greece’s future in the union, sometimes even strongly opposing SYRIZA to achieve this¹⁹⁴. If we were to source this party’s Euroscepticism on the basis of strategic party contestation, it would require the party to use critique addressing the major issue that is beholden in Greece – EU bailout deals. As this party, by us, was previously described as a ‘believer in the European project’, it would influence its critique of it. If the party believes in European integration, by ideological Euroscepticism, it would criticize the development of the union to ensure its future (based on their beliefs). New Democracy seems to rather address the ’big picture’ of the European Union on a basis of ideology. Thus this party often criticizes EU for not it’s imposed austerity measures, but how the union is conducting itself (involving member power balance vis-a-vi Germany, lack of democracy, balance of power of the member states). If this party would use Euroscepticism for a strategic purpose, it would require to channel it when dealing with current political issues most present in Greece. As New Democracy is more willing to ensure Greece’s participation in the union and the euro, it strays away from using anti-EU sentiment, which is popular with anti-austerity parties, to gain an upper hand in previous Greek parliamentary elections¹⁹⁵. Thus, New Democracy is willing to critique EU by its own principal, but so not to object to it that would require Greece exit.

Seeing New Democracy, which sources its Euroscepticism from an ideological standpoint, we need to combine it with what we have presented preciously – New Democracy resembling a compromising attitude towards the European Union. As a party that resembles compromising attitude, New Democracy is more willing to negotiate more and form its rhetoric to better secure its beliefs and position when dealing with EU. As a party that seeks to maintain Greece being an EU state and a member of the euro monetary union, this clearly adds to this depiction¹⁹⁶. In its own party ‘statue’, New Democracy expresses strong determination of maintaining Greece a part of EU¹⁹⁷. This often results in the party acting in opposition to the ruling SYRIZA, in a goal of securing such goals. Thus, New Democracy sources its critique of EU not of the strategic camp, but rather one of ideological with the will to compromise, which seems to guide the party’s perception and attitude towards EU and party’s political opponents.

Source of Euroscepticism – Ideological compromising Euroscepticism.

Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK): PASOK originally started as an anti-integration party, but later changed its views to approving Greece’s integration into European Economic Community, which was to suit the changing political landscape of post dictatorship Greece¹⁹⁸. In its attitude towards the European Union, PASOK is not that highly eurosceptic – often rather promoting the importance and need of EU for Greece’s wellbeing instead of openly opposing it¹⁹⁹. This party is known for actively supporting the first and second Greece’s financial bailout packages²⁰⁰ and expressing pro-European party views²⁰¹. Still, although this party can be viewed as a pro-EU party, PASOK retains its moto of “Greece for Greeks”²⁰² and rather defensive attitude towards foreign intervention that is coming from outside Greece in a form of EU. In this case, as a party that supports further negotiations with EU institutions and Greece’s active participation as an EU state, its mild form of Euroscepticism is seen to be coming from an ideological source (party views) that remains from the founding days of the party²⁰³. By being a pro-EU party that supports accepting Greece’s bailout packages and is incline of supporting the importance, and the role of EU’s institutions – claiming that the party sources its eurosceptic expressions for a strategic purpose would be contradictory to each other. This is because for a party that acts as a pro-EU party and examples more positivity towards EU than negativity, at the same time expressing anti-EU attitude, would come in conflict when the party would be viewed by the same EU institutions. If a party takes upon a stance for EU, it puts itself in the eyes of the people as a party that supports the European Union as a part of its party strategy. A party could not hold pro-EU and anti-EU stance as its political strategy at the same time without maintaining a cohesive party policy. This however, allows the party to retain a form of Eurosceptic expressions within itself if its origins trace back to the ideological beliefs of the party²⁰⁴. In short, PASOK retains its party identity that may express some form of Euroscepticism, but acts as a pro-EU party in which’s strategy such Euroscepticism is not the main point for its rhetoric and policy formation.

In addition to PASOK’s pro-EU position, the party, as detected, expresses compromising attitude towards EU. This in turn allow the party to act as a pro-EU party, even though party ideological stance may hold some Euroscepticism, because the party is ready to compromise and adjust its views so that the policy goals of the party would be achieved²⁰⁵. This grants PASOK a position from which it can act as a pro-EU party.

Source of Euroscepticism – ideological compromising Euroscepticism.

Golden Dawn: Golden Dawn is viewed in Greece as a strong nationalistic party, which follows ideals of nationalism²⁰⁶. Opposite to other soft eurosceptic parties, as described in the second part of this paper, this party belongs to a camp of hard Euroscepticism. This in turn signifies that this party has strong ideological beliefs than not only oppose the European Union on ideological basis, but is seen as a main source of anti-EU critique²⁰⁷. Because Golden Dawn is a strong nationalist party, it naturally comes in conflict with ‘unity in diversity’ principal of EU and its integrational policy. Due to the fact, that EU and its institutions promote multinational integration and transnationalism, it comes in conflict with nationalistic beliefs that Golden Dawn resembles. It seems that this political party, like other Hard Eurosceptic parties (The Communist Party of Greece), express strong party ideology. This ideology, is in its core opposite to what the EU stand for, sources anti-EU sentiment and can be regarded as source of Euroscepticism within the party itself. This in turn signifies that this political party draws its Euroscepticism not from a strategic source, but rather one of ideological nature. As this party expresses strong ideological beliefs, its Euroscepticism may also be seen to be of a harsher form. As this party was previously described to be the ‘most radical anti EU party’, in its rhetoric it’s the most anti-EU party. Thus when one is looking into sources of Euroscepticism within a party, it appears that strong party ideology has the potency to fuel stronger anti EU sentiment. This cannot be so easily said for parties that source their Euroscepticism from a strategic source, as they would rather approve of EU while focusing disapproval only to certain policies or actions of the union itself. We can conclude that a party such as this, a strong nationalist party, is therefore the most anti-EU, because its ideology can be described as a ‘mirror image’ to what EU ideals are promoted to be, thus sourcing stronger opposition and negative attitude.

As to be expected, this party being the most anti-EU party signifies its complete rejectionist attitude towards EU - as established in the first part of this paper²⁰⁸. Because EU and its institutions come in direct conflict with party ideology of Golden Dawn, its complete rejectionism denounced the party being able to resemble a higher level of acceptance (whiteout compromising its ideological integrity). Thus, as a party that has strong nationalistic ideology and tends to example rejectionist attitude towards EU, Golden Dawn can be views as a party, which’s ideology (nationalism) is most indicative of what a radical anti- European party may be seen as.

Source of Euroscepticism – Ideological rejectionist Euroscepticism.

The Communist party: When trying to establish the source of Euroscepticism in a party such as the Communist Party of Greece, one must first say that this party is strongly ideological. Therefore, in a party such as the Communist Party, which sees itself strongly ideological, such ideological Euroscepticism would be the primary point of interest. As a far-leftsocialist party, the Communist party expresses their rhetoric towards the European Union in a clearly ideological fashion. As established in the Perception of EU and Measurement of Euroscepticism parts of this paper, this political party directs its attitude towards EU being guided by their strong ideological beliefs²⁰⁹. Its main disapproval is being sourced from the negative attitude towards capitalism, which EU represents. As a party, which’s ideology comes in conflict with promotion of capitalism, relative to say such negative stance against the union and its institutions is being influenced by party views. Opposite to strategic Euroscepticism, the Communist Party does not seek to use anti-EU critique to aid in in Greek polity contestation and is more indicative of its attitude being guided by strong ideological beliefs²¹⁰. Thus, sourcing its Euroscepticism from an ideological standpoint, the Communist Party is more expected to resemble ideologically based anti-EU critique, which it does in a form of criticizing EU for promoting capitalism values and ideals (oppose ideals to communism). For us to say that the Communist Party of Greece sources its Euroscepticism from an ideological source is to acknowledge party’s strong ideological standpoint, which is very well expressed in their party manifesto²¹¹. We cannot, however, say that this party sources its Euroscepticism from a strategic standpoint. This is because it would require the party to not only use current political (anti-EU) issues as an instrument for polity contestation, but also disregard its party ideology when directing attitude towards the EU. As described in the first and second parts of this paper, the Communist Party seeks to use the European Union for directing its ideological agenda (uniting European communists), but on the core basis it disapproves of the union and its institutions, because they oppose the party’s strong ideological beliefs²¹². Thus to say that the Communist Party does not source its Euroscepticism from an ideological source is to say that the party does not express strong ideological standpoint in its rhetoric.

As described in Perception of EU part of this paper, the Communist Party, opposite to Golden Dawn (in its attitude towards EU) is more resembling of a conditional attitude towards the European Union. As this party oppose the EU, it’s more willing to work within it for the purpose of spreading party communist ideals. Because it requires certain party conditions to be met, which cannot be said will happen, the Communist Party is not utterly rejective of EU, opposite to more nationalistic parties. This party bases its attitude towards EU on how it coincides to the party ideology and seeks conditions that would resemble party ideological stance.

Source of Euroscepticism – Ideological conditional Euroscepticism.

Minimal sources of Euroscepticism

The river (POTAMI): The River is yet another young political party in Greece, which mainly revolves around a single personality – its leader S. Theodorakis. This political party does not have a clear ideological basis, because as expressed by the party leader, the party seeks to act as a steering point for the Greek polity²¹³. Main goal of the party is seen as combating Euroscepticism in Greece and contesting the current Greek pol. elites. This party acts more from a strategic standpoint, rather than ideological, because its progressive attitude towards Greek politics is quite noticeable²¹⁴. Although this party regards itself as a pro-EU party, it still, as any other party, expresses concerns towards EU. These concerns, however, are not negative in nature, but rather agreeing on the flaws – seeing EU as the only successful political experiment of its scale. If we were to look at these concerns towards EU, they would be expresses as the need for more cooperation with EU, rather than its critique and would be drawn from a strategic source. The River’s goal of ‘influencing’ European politics, in addition of defense of the European Union and its importance, indicates a rather optimistic outlook of EU. If we would regard The River’s understanding of EU being flawed as an expression of Euroscepticism – it would be minimal. Such minimal negative view of EU, being of a realistic nature, would only suit a strategic purpose. For that would allow the party to see the European Union with a level of critic (based in reality), while at the same time strategically forming its policy around it. This political party does not see EU as being perfect, but it rather willing to acknowledge it with hopes of achieving its vision of ongoing cooperation and integration of Greece.

This party, being a pro-EU party, is expressing compromising attitude towards EU. As it is aware of the union’s flaws, it’s rather accepting of such flaws in hopes of promoting greater participation of Greek politics on a European scale.

Union of Centrists: As discovered in previous parts, Union of Centrists is one of the most pro-European parties (together with The River) in current Greek politics. As The River, Union of Centrists express minimal levels of Euroscepticism, which are mostly limited to acceptance of EU’s flaws, but in a positive manner. This political party lacks strong negativity towards the European Union, which could be seen in other Greek political parties. As The River, this party is more pro-EU than anti-EU. In its rhetoric, Union of Centrists express’s more positive views of EU and lacks the negativity which would allow distinguishing sources of Euroscepticism. This political party is willing to express pro-EUism, rather than taking a position against it. Because of this a source of either ideological or strategic Euroscepticism cannot be found here. This is because in its party ideology, Union of Centrist express strong pro-EUism²¹⁵. In addition to this, this party takes upon a strategic stance ‘for EU’ in current Greek polity contestation. So if we’re to look for strategic or ideological sources of Euroscepticism, both would be replaced by sources of pro-EUism.

Similar to its attitude towards the progression of the European Union, this party expresses compromising attitude towards it. It’s willing to accept current EU power structure and its policy formation as a necessity for Greece – stating that EU is mandatory for Greece as it is for Europe itself²¹⁶. In addition to the party’s pro-EUism the party is very complaint with current EU development (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Party sources of Euroscepticism in relation to perception of EU.

Application of critique

As in the previous parts of this paper we have discussed how Greece’s current active political parties: 1). View the European Union and its institutions: 2). What is the level of negativity expresses; 3). Where such negativity is being sourced from. This part will focus on how these parties mainly apply expressed negativity it currently in Greek polity.

We will follow Börzel, Risse [11] and Olsen’s [12] methodologies of Reactive Euroscepticism in addition to Operationalization of Euroscepticism by Szczerbiak and Taggart. However, such parties as The River (POTAMI) and Union of Centrist will be excluded, because as presented in previous parts – they lack the sufficient expressions of Euroscepticism for such parties to be regarded as active Eurosceptic parties²¹⁷.

Generally current active political parties in Greek tend to focus their Euroscepticism mainly on resolving Greece’s financial troubles or critiquing the European Union itself. The method how this critique is conducted and applied, hoverer, differs in range and scope.

SYRIZA: Parties such as SYRIZA, which based their carrier on critique of European Union in favor of securing Greece’s transition from the debt crisis, tend to resemble a provocative application of its critique. As provocative critique is aimed towards criticizing EU current integration and policies, SYRIZA, while agreeing with the idea of European integration, tends to aim of provoking a response from the European elites in order to justify current EU integration and its policies applied to Greece. As the leading party in Greek government, it constantly puts itself in a position of negotiation and interaction with the European institutions. This gives SYRIZA an ability to challenge the legitimacy and institutionalization of EU. As a soft-Eurosceptic party, it applies its Euroscepticism not in a complete anti-EU fashion, but rather in a form of strategic conditional Euroscepticism, which confirms its provocative critique. In such way, SYRIZA applies a European issue (EU’s bailout financial aid to Greece) and uses it in inner party competition, public debate and gaining support from the public. As previously described – SYRIZA gained both political momentum and large support from the public by exploiting a European issue (EU’s austerity policies), which in turn allowed it to rise to power by promising an alternative approach to Greek political problems (dealing with EU’s bailout). Although it tends not to mainly criticize other political parties within Greece by calling them too anti or pro EU, its main focus seems to be use of Euroscepticism within the public debate (taking a stance against EU) and in turn gaining support from the public, which is displeased with EU’s policy. Thus a party, which generally agrees with European integration, resided in the camp of soft Euroscepticism and expresses the use of conditional strategic anti-EUism, we can establish that SYRIZA uses its expressed critique of EU in a form of eurosceptic rhetoric, which has much public support in Greece – allowing this party to draw support from the electorate in order to sustain its power and within the Greek polity.

Application – Provocative Euroscepticism.

Independent Greeks: Independent Greeks goal is for Greece to be taken seriously within the EU’s polity²¹⁸. Although this party is taken a stance for European integration, its critique revolves around criticizing the current ‘order of things’ within the union – mainly power balance between European states and EU’s institutional position above national institutions. Expressing conditional Soft Euroscepticism towards EU with euro-pessimist and Eurorealist tendencies, its strategic application of anti-EUism, while being in a coalition government with SYRIZA, is rather reactional than provocative. As being more in favor of EU than SYRIZA, Independent Greeks application of Euroscepticism centers around reacting to current elements and policies of EU that are in conflict with party views. Mainly EU’s institutional dominance over Greece (imposing austerity measures) and dominance of union members as Germany in such matters²¹⁹. As agreeing with the benefits of European unification, Independent Greeks are not attempting to question the legitimacy of European elites, but rather are reacting to the current course of action that EU is taking – current progression of EU’s institutional and policy elements. As this party is seeking for such issues to be addressed, its alliance with SYRIZA indicates a goal of using reactionary European issues in inner party competition – uniting with the ruling party SYRIZA, which campaigned as a provocative anti bailout party. This presented to the Independent Greek the opportunity to use issues concerning EU as a tool for indicating common goals with other major Greek parties. As less using Euroscepticism to gain support from the public (being more positive of EU), it still addresses them in the public debate, though not as an anti-EU party. Mainly relying on attracting attention to its expresses concerns about EU in the public debate, Independent Greeks are very vocal in addressing such matters²²⁰. Independent Greeks seem to try to draw attention from the public to vital issues such as operationalization of current EU at the same time presenting its constructed opposition towards them by means of seeking more equality between member states. Thus application of Euroscepticism within this party seeks to start a debate on the importance and reliance of Greece on the European Union at the time presenting its solutions towards such problems.

Application – Reactionary Euroscepticism.

Golden Dawn: Golden Dawn, as described in previous chapters, is the most anti-EU party currently active in Greek polity. Less radical than the Communist Party, but as same strongly Eurosceptic, Golden Dawn is seen not attempting to provoke or react to current European issues, but rather mainly opposing them. As this party completely criticizes EU, its application of described Euroscepticism seems to be of Anti pro-European nature. Golden Dawn does not focus its critique of EU by criticizing elements or policies of it, but rather is seeking to present counter arguments to them²²¹. This political party can be seen as an anti-pro-European party – often seeking to neglect and or deny the positive arguments presented in favor of EU and European integration. Eurosceptic elements in this party seem to oppose the enlargement of the union and Greece’s participation in it. Thus, in applicatory Euroscepticism Golden Dawn is more focused on using anti-EUism more in the public debate and attraction of public support rather than in inner party competition – as it seeks to use radicalized elements of the public to receive support. As a strong nationalist party, its reliance on nationalistic sentiment drives its party rhetoric towards exploiting public displeasement of EU by means of counter arguments directed towards benefits and the need for EU itself.

Application – Anti pro-European Euroscepticism.

Communist party: The Communist party is less radical than Golden Dawn, but still retains its strong ideological stand on EU as described in previous parts. As a hard eurosceptic party, which sources its critique from an ideological standpoint, it applies its criticism to oppose pro EU values that are promoted by EU itself – as seen it its party program²²². This political party is fond for European Integration, but opposite to what it is seen by EU elites themselves. Thus this political party mainly applies its Euroscepticism, which is orientated towards criticizing capitalist element of EU, in a form of attempting to provoke European elites by questioning their legitimacy and further acting as an anti pro-European party, which provided counter arguments to those of EU. Even in its expressed criticism of EU and its institutions, the Communist party applies a rhetoric of disproving capitalist values that are promoted by EU institutions²²³. By such means this party attempts to provide counter arguments to the arguments presented by EU and its elites, while at the same time capitalizing on the public displeasement of how such European issues (Greek financial crisis) are being addressed. Though using Euroscepticism in inner party competition would be beneficial for the Communist party as it would use the existing public displeasement with EU, the party applies its Hard Euroscepticism more towards gaining support from the public and presenting its arguments within the public debate²²⁴. As in Greek party competition this party would unavoidably critique any other slightly pro-EU party, judging by its strong ideological views²²⁵, the Communist party seems to be focused on addressing its Euroscepticism together with other European Communists on EU level²²⁶. By using its strong ideological beliefs, the Communist party may fear to be seen as a political fossil within the Greek party sphere as it’s more dominated by softer Eurosceptic parties that do not see EU as being ‘un-reformable’. Due to this, as seen it the party’s own party program, the Communist party is focused on presenting its anti-EU issues to the public.

Application – Anti pro-European Euroscepticism.

Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK): PASOK is regarded in Greek polity as a pro-EU party, but still expresses small amounts of Euroscepticism as presented previously. As this party is more pro-EU, its displeasement with EU seems to be used mainly in a reactionary way to critique current EU shortcomings (level of democracy, institutional power balance, member attitude towards Greece). More reactionary than provocative, this party applies its Euroscepticism when criticizing EU’s policies at the same time opposing other Eurosceptic parties such as SYRIZA. By such means it can be seen, that PASOK does not critique other parties for being too/less pro-EU, but rather addressing party concerns towards the current EU development. This political party is more focused on using its expressed Euroscepticism, concerning EU’s development, within the party program and public debate²²⁷.

Application – Reactive Euroscepticism.

Movement of democratic socialists (KIDISO): KIDISO, a PASOK splinter party, expresses more Euroscepticism that its parent party and can be seen as a more provocative Eurosceptic party than reactionary²²⁸. As its stronger critique of EU is orientated towards blaming the union for the current Greek economic crisis and labeling the EU’s integration as the source of it, KIDISO seems to attempt to question the legitimacy and importance of current EU’s development and its institutional power. Thus it’s not as reacting to developing European issues as it’s seeking to provoke a response from EU itself in order to address party concerns. Not completely anti pro-EU, KIDISO still seeks to reform the current EU in order to fix the problems it currently has – such as economic susceptibility to crisis. As a party seeking to establish its own political identity after the 2015 split from PASOK²²⁹, KIDISO currently orientates its political program towards addressing its expressed Euroscepticism while gathering support from the public in order to gather political capital. As KIDISO is very newly formed party, using Euroscepticism in the public debate and to gather political support is expected for the party to form strong party identity. Further use of Euroscepticism in inner party competition may be seen in a way of critiquing other parties for taking up a too pro-EU position.

Application – Provocative Euroscepticism.

New Democracy: New Democracy is regarded in the Greek polity as a pro-EU party. Still, it expresses concerns towards EU, which were labeled as Euroscepticism. Although this political party mainly acts to oppose anti-EU parties, it is willing to ally itself with such parties, if needed, to ensure Greece place in the EU²³⁰. This indicates that though acting more as a pro-EU party, New Democracy does not use Euroscepticism in polity contestation. Also, it does not acts as a provocative party, because that would require it to maintain anti EU critical position as its dominant policy goal. New Democracy is rather willing to apply its expressed Euroscepticism, which was concluded to be of compromising nature, while reaching to EU’s development. New Democracy is more indicative of a reactive party based on how this party is reacting to the shifting EU development and does not seek to question the legitimacy of EU, but rather express worry towards EU conducted integration policies. Its Euroscepticism is more applied based on how party ideology reacts to current development of European integration, as previously described²³¹. Thus this party is more willing to use its expressed concern regarding EU’s development in the public debate, rather than using critique of EU to gain support from it. New Democracy seems to seek more to draw attention to the issues that it deems worthy (democratization of EU) to be addressed rather than using anti-EUism to gain support and switch its stance on EU. In addition to this, it does not use Euroscepticism in inner party competition. On the contrary, it uses the very existence of Euroscepticism in inner party competition so to inforce its stance for EU and critique other parties for using anti-EUism²³² (Figure 9).

Figure 9: Application of Euroscepticism based on perception and source.

Application – Reactive Euroscepticism.

• The Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) – Provocative conditional application.

• Independent Greeks (ANEL) – Reactionary conditional.

• Golden Dawn (XA) – anti pro EU rejectionist application.

• Communist party (KKE) – anti pro-EU conditional application.

• Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) – Reactive compromising application.

• Movement of Democratic Socialists (KIDISO) – Provocative conditional application.

• New Democracy (ND) – Reactive compromising application.

In this paper I have analyzed the expressions of Euroscepticism that are seen in current active Greek political parties. These expressions of anti-EUism differed in parties and resulted in different sources and applications dependent of the party taken into question. Although different political scientists have devised separate methods of measurement and detection of Euroscepticism, in this paper what was shown was that different methods, each looking into separate fractions of eurosceptic elements, are essential in order to not only understand what type of Euroscepticism the party expresses, but also on what factors it is dependent and to what conclusions it leads. It was shown, that not only current party rhetoric towards EU is imperative in order to understand its expressed concerns towards EU, but also how such party understands and views different stages of European integration and ideals each on holds.

In Greece, as shown, Euroscepticism in political parties is common and diverse – residing in different form both in soft and hard eurosceptic parties and even present in parties that view themselves as pro-EU parties. This Euroscepticism is fueled and formed in different ways dependent how a party sees the ideals of European integration, current EU’s development and form that EU is seen to be taking.

We need to understand that Euroscepticism should not be only viewed as a total opposition towards EU, but rather a critical attitude in need of attracting attention to the need of change. In Greece, this attitude has fueled many political parties, which seek to propose their own versions of what EU should become and how it should change.

To form my final thoughts and to add to my work, I propose that Euroscepticism should not be viewed as a negative elements in national politics, in any nation, but on the opposite – an element, which gives us the ability to view European integration and the EU project itself from various angles of opinion and perspective. Each different in its form and completion, but all providing the information we need to better understand the EU’s visions impact on current multinational political party environment.

The variations of Euroscepticism in Greek contemporary political parties allows differentiating views on EU – ranging from complete disapproval to soft critique. This in turn allows variations of the level to which a party expresses eurosceptic behavior.

Evaluation and measurement of Euroscepticism in political parties are dependent on party ideology, policy goals and rhetoric beholden by the party itself and its leaders.

Current active Greek party polity holds within itself parties that have strong ideological/historical roots, parties that came to solely oppose the European Union and parties that seek to defend Greece’s current place within EU.

By looking into how a party views past, present and future development of European integration, it can be determined to which camp of Euroscepticism does that party reside and affect its expressed view of the European Union.

Greek political party programs and policies indicate that the Greek financial crisis is the main rising cause of expressed Euroscepticism. The secondary cause of Euroscepticism is party displeasement with current development of European integration.

Hard Euroscepticism in Greek political parties is common to strongly ideological political parties residing in the radical corners of an ideological spectrum. Soft Euroscepticism is common to political parties residing in the center left or center right peripherals of ideological spectrum.

Soft Eurosceptic Greek (SYRIZA, ANEL, KIDISO, ND, PASOK) parties are all in favor of principal European integration, only diverging in their acceptance of EU based on their current view of ongoing and future European development.

Based on how a party views principal, practice and future principals of European integration it results in its residence in either soft or hard camps of Euroscepticism. Parties that agree with the principal ideal tend to be more soft-eurosceptic, while parties that disagree with all principals explicit Hard Euroscepticism. Anomaly: Communist party, which agrees with the need of integration by viewing it in a different way than EU.

If a party regards itself as a pro-EU party, it still may express eurosceptic elements based on parts of its ideology coming into conflict with ideals of European integration.

Parties that source their Euroscepticism from a strategic source tend to be soft Eurosceptic parties with a conditional attitude towards EU, while parties that exhibit ideological source tend to be hard Eurosceptic rejectionist parties (completely disagreeing with EU) or pro-EU compromising parties (expressing concerns towards EU). Anomaly: The Communist party expresses ideological conditional attitude, which is un-achievable due to major difference between party ideology and values of European integration.

Pro-EU parties (EK, POTAMI) express Europhile, Euroenthusiast and Euro-optimist view of EU. Soft Eurosceptic parties express Europessimist, Euro-optimist and Eurorealist view of EU. Hard Eurosceptic parties (KKE, XA) express Europhobe, Eurosceptic, Euro-pessimist and Eurocynic view of EU.

Parties that express rejectionist attitude towards EU tend to apply their Euroscepticism in a manner of anti pro-European Euroscepticism, unless their attitude towards EU is conditional based on party ideology reforming the ideals of European integration (Communist party). Parties that express conditional attitude towards EU tend to apply their Euroscepticism in a provocative manner, while parties that express compromising apply reactionary Euroscepticism. This indicates that party’s attitude towards EU affects the way in which parties apply anti-EUism – the level of acceptance affecting the level of aggressive eurosceptic behavior.

Strategic Euroscepticism is indicative to soft eurosceptic parties that express conditional attitude towards EU, while ideological Euroscepticism is common for both pro-EU and anti-EU hard eurosceptic parties, and allows differentiation between rejectionist, conditional and compromising attitudes.

¹George Kyris. “Euroscepticism Lite: the Greek verdict on EU membership”. University of Birmingham 2008-2013.

²Susannah Verney. “Euroscepticism in Southern Europe”. Routledge Publishing, 2012.

³Chris Flood 2002, ‘Euroscepticism: A problematic Concept’. UACES 32^nd Annual Conference. Queens University Belfast.

⁴Polity of the European Union in itself hold European political institutions, political elites and other political actors that are a part of the European Union’s political system and or act in policies that are being conducted within the union/for the union.

⁵Maastricht Treaty (1992) introducing European Union as a next step stepping stone for the European Economic Community. Forming a political union and moving above mainly economic cooperation. Referring to the Maaastrict treaty introducing the European Union (EU). Source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/ EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:xy0026

⁶Pieter de Wilde, Hans-Jorg Trenz. “Converging on Euroscepticism: Online polity contestation during European Parliament elections”. European Consortium for Political Research 2014.

⁷Most notable cases of French and Dutch citizens down voting the European Union’s Constitution project in 2005, which presented notable problems to the Constitutional project.

⁸Chris Flood 2002, ‘Euroscepticism: A problematic Concept’. UACES 32nd Annual Conference. Queens University Belfast. p.5-8.

⁹This cooperation by Sofia Vasilopoulou (2009) is describer to not only be multilateral, but also bilateral in the terms of European framework.

¹⁰Far right and nationalist parties tend to adopt a negative attitude towards EU to suit their ideological preposition. ‘A Field Guide to Europe’s Radical Right Political Parties’. The World Post, 2015. Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/12/ europe-far-right_n_6511022.html Checked: 2015-06-10

¹¹Hungarian Justice and Life and Workers Party adjusted its competitive campaign policies to better suit the elections. Euroscepticism was softened and or sharpened dependent on the need. ‘Battle for Hungary’s media, BBC News Agency: 2000. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/690851.stm Checked 2015-06-10

¹²Affected parties – by Hand Jorg and Pieter Wilde these affected parties are defined as entities on a national level raging from citizens to political actors which are being provoked to respond to certain EU enlargement and integration. See further Hand Jorg and Pieter Wilde on Denouncing Euroscepticism.

¹³EUR-Lex, “Common European Security and Defense policy”. European Union Law database 2015. Source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ TXT/?uri=URISERV:ai0026 Checked 2015-06-11

¹⁴T. Raunio, 'The difficult task of opposing EU in Finland', Paper presented to ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops workshop on 'Opposing Europe: Euroscepticism and political parties', Turin, March 22-27 2002. pp 8 and 11.

¹⁵Paul Taggart, ‘Opposing Europe?: The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism Vl.1 Case Studies and Country Surveyrs’. Oxford University Press 2008. p.15-20

¹⁶P.Taggart, A. Szczerbiak. 'Parties, Positions and Europe: Euroscepticism in the EU Candidate States of Central and Eastern Europe.' European Journal of Political Research 2001. pp. 20-23.

¹⁷By using the arguments from H. Jorg-P. Wilde research on Euroscepticism, we notice that they argue on two active types of Eurosceptic parties can we can see. On is more passive like and demanding for change. The other is of a blocking nature, which seeks to block any further EU encroachment whatsoever.

¹⁸We seek to follow the action types of possible Eurosceptic parties that were presented by A. Szczerbiak, P. Taggartin their research on Eurosceptic party actions within a state polity. We will use their definitions of what a party can do and why it does it to exploit a European issue in a polity contestation.

¹⁹SYRIZA political party web page. Presenting SYRIZA to the public. About party page. Source: http://www.syriza.gr/page/who-we-are.html#.VgvyV2uUKYR

²⁰Metapolis, The World of Polls. Greek profile: Political party ideological positioning and profiling – Greece. (Checked 2015.08.11.) Source: http://metapolls.net/ country-facts-2/greece/greek-political-parties/#.VfWeRPSUJHA Checked: 2015- 06-15

²¹‘Stavros Theodorakis’s River party aims to get Greek politics flowing in the right direction.’ The Guardian news paper 2014 article. Source: http://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2014/mar/13/stavros-theodorakis-river-greek-potamieuropean- elections Checked: 2015-06-11

²²“Greece’s new Potami party prepares for kingmaker role”, ‘Reuters news paper 2015’. Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/01/09/uk-greece-election-riveridUKKBN0KI1GP20150109 Checked: 2015-06-11

²³Business insider UK article by J.Mackenzie titled ‘Greece’s upcoming elections just got more complicated’. Source: http://uk.businessinsider.com/greeces-upcomingelection- just-got-more-more-complicated-2015-1 Checked: 2015-06-14

²⁴Protohema article by P. Tsiboukis titled: ‘Movement – Democrats socialists party of Papandreou’. Source: http://www.protothema.gr/politics/article/439447/alert-kinimadimokraton- sosialiston-tha-legetai-to-komma-papandreou/ Checked: 2015-06-17

²⁵Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Our Founding Declaration’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/

²⁶The Communist Party of Greece. Official party description. Source: http://inter. kke.gr/en/aboutKKE/history/

²⁷Understanding the Greek Communists. Political article by Nikos Lountos. Source: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/understanding-the-greek-communists/ Checked: 2015-06-15

²⁸‘Understanding the Greek Communists;. Political article by Giorgos Charalambous. Source: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/greeceatlse/2012/09/02/understandingthe- greek-communist-party/ Checked: 2015-06-15

²⁹Union of Centrist official party page, ‘Our Goals’ section. Source: http://www. antidiaploki.gr/category/5/oi_theseis_mas.html Checked; 2015-06-18

³⁰Papandreou archive – George A.Papandreo. Source: http://archive.papandreou. gr/papandreou/content/Home.aspx?d=6&rd=7739474&f=-1&rf=-1&m=-1&rm=- 1&l=1 Checked: 2015-06-17

³¹Politico article by Y. Baboulis titled: ‘ A new leader for the New Democracy’ 2015. Source: http://www.politico.eu/article/a-new-leader-for-new-democracy-greece/ Checked: 2015-06-17

³²Our Campaigns, Panhellenic Socialist Movement - Greek party database. Source: http://www.ourcampaigns.com/PartyDetail.html?PartyID=515 Checked: 2015-06-11

³³Popular Association ‘Golden Dawn’. Party program and rhetoric composition of Golden Dawn political party in Greece. Source: http://www.xryshaygh.com/en/ information Checked: 2015-06-10

³⁴Same. Golden Dawn, ‘What being a Golden-Dawner means section of party values.

³⁵The Independent. “Independent Greeks: Who are Syriza’s right-wing coalition partners and what do they want?” article by Lizzie Dearden, 2015. Source: http:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/independent-greeks-who-are-syrizasright- wing-coalition-partners-and-what-do-they-want-10003224.html Checked: 2015- 06-12

³⁶The Guardian. ”Who are the Independent Greeks?”, Article by Helena Smith. Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/greece-elections-who-areindependent- greeks Checked: 2015-06-17

³⁷2015 Greek election campaign goals. Syriza campaign rhetoric analysis. ‘Analyze Greece – News and Left politics’ , Source: http://www.analyzegreece.gr/topics/ elections-250102015/item/62-2015-campaign-slogans-and-images-strig-greece-5 Checked: 2015-10-18

³⁸SYRIZA official party page. ‘Founding Declaration’ – Our Goals section. Source: http://www.syriza.gr/page/idrytikh-diakhryksh.html#.VlNWFfkrKUk Checked: 2015- 09-11

³⁹The Guardian. “Q&A: What Syriza’s victory means for Greece and the EU bailout”. Article by Sean Farrell’ 2015.Source: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/ sep/21/syrizas-victory-greece-q-and-a-eu-bailout Checked: 2015-09-29

⁴⁰Telesutv.net. ”Syriza Leadership Reject’s Humiliating EU Deal for Greece”. Article by Reuters-Avgi;2015. Source: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ Syriza-Leadership-Reject-Humiliating-EU-Deal-for-Greece-20150715-0016.html Checked: 2015- 09-05

⁴¹SIRIZA official party page, ‘Policy decision founding congress of SYRIZA’. Source: http://www.syriza.gr/article/POLITIKH-APOFASH-IDRYTIKOY-SYNEDRIOYTOY- SYRIZA.html#.VlNXiPkrKUk Checked: 2015-09-10

⁴²Slate News. “Europe Didn’t Win”. Article by Alexander Clapp, 2015.Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/2015/07/greece_ negotiations_with_eu_in_athens_greeks_distrust_syriza_as_much_as.html Checked: 2015-09-11

⁴³SYRIZA official party page, ‘The statute of SYRIZA’. Source: http://www.syriza.gr/ page/katastatiko.html#.VlNYS_krKUk Checked: 2015-09-11

⁴⁴Syriza.gr. Description of Syriza political vision and goals 2015. Source: http:// www.syriza.gr/page/who-we-are.html#.ViEuBWuUKYR Checked: 2015-09-11

⁴⁵Hellenic Republic, ‘Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ speech to the European Parliament’. Source: http://www.primeminister.gov.gr/english/2015/07/08/primeminister- alexis-tsipras-speech-to-the-european-parliament/ Checked: 2015-09-11

⁴⁶SYRIZA official party page, ‘Founding Declaration’. Source: http://www.syriza.gr/ page/idrytikh-diakhryksh.html#.VlNZEfkrKUk Checked: 2015-09-11

⁴⁷Open Democracy 2015 article, “Why I am standing as a candidate for To Potami in the upcoming Greek election”. Source: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ can-europe-make-it/pavlos-eleftheriadis/why-i-am-standing-as-candidate-for-topotami- in-upcoming-gre Checked: 2015-10-01

⁴⁸EurActiv.com, “New party shakes Greek political scene”. Press article 2014. Source: http://www.euractiv.com/sections/eu-elections-2014/new-party-shakesgreek- political-scene-301531 Checked: 2015-09-05

⁴⁹The River (POTAMI) official party page, ‘ Our Principals’ section. Source: http:// topotami.gr/oi-theseis-mas/ Checked: 2015-09-02

⁵⁰Sigmalive.com, Potami praises Tsipras for keeping Greece in the EU”. Article 2015. Source: http://www.sigmalive.com/en/news/greece/132080/potami-leaderpraises- tsipras-for-keeping-greece-in-the-eu

⁵¹Interview with Stavros Theodorakis 2015. Source: http://topotami.gr/stavrostheodorakis- in-an-interview-with-the-german-daily-faz-when-tsipras-fails-we-willbe- ready/ Checked: 2015-09-02

⁵²Open Democracy 2015 article, “Greece:how deep does this River run?”. Source: https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/stavros-theodorakisnicholas- yatromanolakis-alex-sakalis/greece-how-deep-does-thi Checked: 2015- 09-22

⁵³Ekathimerini.com. News article “Greece’s Potami party to sit in the same EU groupd as PASOK”. Source: http://www.ekathimerini.com/160274/article/ ekathimerini/news/greeces-potami-party-to-sit-in-same-eu-group-as-pasok Checked: 2015-09-25

⁵⁴The Parliament Magazine 2015, “EU must become a financial, democratic and cultural power”. Source: https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/news/eumust- become-financial-democratic-and-cultural-power

⁵⁵BBC News, ‘Greek elections: Main parties from Syriza to Golden Dawn explained’. News article2015. Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30913028 Checked: 2015-09-21

⁵⁶Interview with Stavros Theodorakis 2015. Source: http://topotami.gr/stavrostheodorakis- in-an-interview-with-the-german-daily-faz-when-tsipras-fails-we-willbe- ready/ Checked: 2015-09-12

⁵⁷The Toc News Agency 2015, ‘The River’s Stavros Theorodakis: Potential kingmaker’. Source: http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/the-rivers-stavrostheodorakis- potential-kingmaker Checked: 2015-09-10

⁵⁸Miltos Kyrkos interview on EurActiv 2015. Source: http://www.euractiv.com/video/ potami-future-greece-lies-within-eurozone-311504 Checked: 2015-09-22

⁵⁹Same as previous

⁶⁰Encyclopedia Britannica, New Democracy (ND)- Political party Greece. Source: http://www.britannica.com/topic/New-Democracy Checked: 2015-09-15

⁶¹CVCE – innovating European Studies, ‘Address by Konstantinos Karamanlis at the signature of the association agreement between Greece and the EEC’. Source: http://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/address_by_konstantinos_karamanlis_at_the_ signature_of_the_association_agreement_between_greece_and_the_eec_9_ july_1961-en-9d82240f-52e9-4965-aede-0647fec81cd5.html Checked: 2015-09-11

⁶²New Democracy party website. Political organization – Ideology. Source: http:// nd.gr/h-nea-dimokratia#giati-agonizomaste Checked: 2015-09-13

⁶³Blomberg News. ‘Greek Opposition Leader Says would join coalition with Tsipras’ 2015. Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-07/greek-oppositionleader- says-would-join-coalition-with-tsipras Checked: 2015-09-22

⁶⁴Independent Balkan News, ‘Interview with president of New Democracy Evaggelos Meimarakis’ 2015. Source: http://sofiaglobe.com/2015/09/17/greekelections- interview-with-evaggelos-meimarakis-president-of-new-democracy/ Checked: 2015-09-23

⁶⁵Same as previous

⁶⁶European People’s party ME’s. Source: http://www.eppgroup.eu/greece Checked: 2015-09-23

⁶⁷Be a part of not only national level parliamentary political parties/groups, but also a part of supranational political parties/union and actively participate in supranational politics.

⁶⁸New Democracy party website. Political organization – Ideology. Source: http:// nd.gr/h-nea-dimokratia#giati-agonizomaste

⁶⁹The Communist Party of Greece. Party official take on the European Union described in the Introductory Speech of European Communists Meeting 2014. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Introductory-Speech/ Checked: 2015-09-24

⁷⁰Same as previous.

⁷¹Communist Party of Greece. Pol. Program of the KKE. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/ en/articles/Programme-of-the-KKE/ Checked: 2015-09-23

⁷²The Communist Party of Greece. “With a strong KKE we can take a step on the path to overthrow the system.”. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/ With-a-strong-KKE-we-can-take-a-step-on-the-path-to-overthrow-the-system/ Checked:2015-09-23

⁷³The Communist Party of Greece. “Statement of the Central Committee of the KKE on the resuls of the Parliamentary Elections on the 20th of Semptember”. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Statement-of-the-Central-Committee-of-the-KKE-onthe- results-of-the-Parliamentary-Elections-on-the-20th-of-September/ 2015-09-13

⁷⁴The Communist Party of Greece. “No “second chance” for the anti-people plans and illusions”. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/No-second-chance-for-theanti- people-plans-and-illusions/ Checked: 2015-09-13

⁷⁵The Communist Party of Greece. “Statement of the central committee of the KKE on the new agreement-memorandum”. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/ STATEMENT-OF-THE-CENTRAL-COMMITTEE-OF-THE-KKE-ON-THE-NEWAGREEMENT- MEMORANDUM/ Checked: 2015-09-13

⁷⁶PASOK political party of Greece. Official party page “Our Movement”. Source: http://www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7 %CE%BC%CE%B1/ Checked: 2015-09-13

⁷⁷PASOK Founding Declaration of Basic Principles and Goals (1974). Source: http://www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7 %CE%BC%CE%B1/ Checked: 2015-09-13

⁷⁸Encyclopedia Britannica. Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASO). Source: http:// www.britannica.com/topic/Panhellenic-Socialist-Movement 2015-09-13

⁷⁹Greece2Day article titled: ‘PASOK’s leader Fofi Gennimata appeals to EU leadership for initiatives to end crisis’. Source: http://greece2day.com/index.php/ politics/item/3603-pasok-leader-fofi-gennimata-appeals-to-eu-leadership-forinitiatives- to-end-crisis 2015-09-13

⁸⁰Same as previous

⁸¹EurActv. ‘Syriza warming up to PASOK. Source: http://www.euractiv.com/ sections/elections/syriza-warming-pasok-317360 2015-09-22

⁸²BreitBart news article titled: ‘The end of the Center left? Greece’s socialist party loses to both left and neo-nazis’.Source: http://www.breitbart.com/nationalsecurity/ 2015/01/26/the-end-of-the-center-left-greeces-socialist-party-loses-toboth- hard-left-and-neo-nazis/ 2015-09-13

⁸³EurActiv article titled: ‘PASOK refuses to back Tsipras in confidence vote’. Source: http://www.euractiv.com/sections/euro-finance/pasok-refuses-back-tsipras-confidencevote- 316858 2015-09-13

⁸⁴The National Herald, ’PASOK backs SYRIZA bailout deal’. Source: http://www. thenationalherald.com/91283/ Checked: 2015-09-13

⁸⁵PASOK party page. Our Positions - ‘Our strategy of growth’. Source: http://www.pasok. gr/%CE%BF%CE%B9-%CE%B8%CE%AD%CF%83%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%82- %CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%82/ Checked: 2015-09-25

⁸⁶Same as previous. Section on ‘Macroeconomics framework – budgetary balance.’

⁸⁷Golden Dawn International Newsroom. Golden Dawn’s take on 2014 EU elections. Source: http://golden-dawn-international-newsroom.blogspot.lt/2014/05/ eu-elections-2014-mother-of-all-battles.html Checked: 2015-09-25

⁸⁸Cult Education Institute. Greece’s far right Golden Dawn party profile. Source: http://www.culteducation.com/group/1071-neo-nazis/26634-profile-greece-s-farright- golden-dawn-party.html Checked: 2015-09-25

⁸⁹Golden Dawn International Newsroom. Golden party program. Source: http:// golden-dawn-international-newsroom.blogspot.lt/p/the-program-of-golden-dawn. html Checked: 2015-09-25

⁹⁰Same as previous. Section on ‘National economy and growth’.

⁹¹Golden Dawn International Newsroom. Golden Dawn’s take on 2014 EU elections. Source: http://golden-dawn-international-newsroom.blogspot.lt/2014/05/ eu-elections-2014-mother-of-all-battles.html Checked: 2015-09-25

⁹²Foreign Policy Association. ‘Does the Greek Golden Dawn party threaten European unity’? Article by Mark Varga. Source: http://foreignpolicyblogs. com/2014/07/20/does-the-greek-golden-dawn-party-threaten-european-unity/ Checked: 2015-09-25

⁹³Greece;s MEP’s in European Parliament. Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ meps/en/search.html?country=GR Checked: 2015-09-25

⁹⁴awn-international-newsroom.blogspot.lt/p/the-program-of-golden-dawn. html Checked: 2015-09-25

⁹⁵The Guardian article titled ‘The EU’s woeful response to the refuge crisis has revived Golden Dawn’. Source: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/ sep/21/eu-refugee-crisis-golden-dawn-greek-neo-nazi-europe Checked: 2015-09-25

⁹⁶Golden Dawn International Newsroom. Golden Dawn party program. Section on ‘Geostrategic turn’. Source: http://golden-dawn-international-newsroom.blogspot. lt/p/the-program-of-golden-dawn.html Checked: 2015-09-25

⁹⁷Independent Greeks party site. Party founding declaration of 2012 Feb.24. Source: http://www.anexartitoiellines.gr/diak.php Checked: 2015-09-25

⁹⁸Same as previous.

⁹⁹Independent Greeks. Party speeches in Parliament. ID Deputy Achaias Nikou Nikolopoulou 2015. Source: http://www.anexartitoiellines.gr/parl_speach_more. php?post_id=202 Checked: 2015-09-20

¹⁰⁰Independent Greeks. Movement presentation. Source: http://www. anexartitoiellines.gr/about.php

¹⁰¹The International Schiller Institute. Panos Kammenos speech 2014. Source: http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com/media/panos-kammenos-la-grece-et-lanouvelle- route-de-la-soie/ Checked: 2015-09-20

¹⁰²Same as previous.

¹⁰³Panos Kammenos speech at the International Schiller Institute 2015. The subject of the “Silk Road”. Source: http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com/media/panoskammenos- la-grece-et-la-nouvelle-route-de-la-soie/ Checked: 2015-09-25

¹⁰⁴Reuters article by Harry Papachristou titled: ‘Greek conservatives rebel battles German “domination”. Reuters interview with Panos Kammenos. Source: http:// uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/23/uk-greece-interview-idUKBRE83M1CS20120423 Checked: 2015-09-25

¹⁰⁵Same as previous. Interview with Panos Kammenos.

¹⁰⁶The Telegraph article by Bruno Waterfield titled: ‘Greece’s defense minister threatens to send migrants including jihadists to Western Europe”. Source: http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11459675/Greeces-defenceminister- threatens-to-send-migrants-including-jihadists-to-Western-Europe.html Checked: 2015-09-25

¹⁰⁷Fortune article by Geoffrey Smith titled: ‘The Eurozone tells Greece: be a vassal or an outcast’. Source: http://fortune.com/2015/07/12/the-eurozone-offered-greece-achoice- be-a-vassal-or-an-outcast/ Checked: 2015-09-25

¹⁰⁸Union of Centrists official party page, ‘Prologue’ section. Source: http://www. antidiaploki.gr/article/845/prologos.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015-09-22

¹⁰⁹Union of Centrists official party page, ‘Foreign Policy’ section. Source: http://www. antidiaploki.gr/article/843/exwteriki_politiki.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015-09-25

¹¹⁰The Guardian article titled: ‘Greek elections live: Alexis Tsipras celebrates victory – as it happened’. Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/sep/20/ greek-general-election-results-alexis-tsipras-syriza-meimarakis-new-democracylive Checked: 2015-09-29

¹¹¹Union of Centrist official party page, ‘Plan to leave the Memorandum’ section. Source: http://www.antidiaploki.gr/article/668/sxedio_gia_na_fygoyme_apo_to_ mnimonio.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015-09-25

¹¹²Union of Centrists official party page, ‘European Union’ section. Source: http:// www.antidiaploki.gr/article/840/eyrwpaiki_enwsi.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015- 09-25

¹¹³Union of Centrist official party page, ‘Foreign Policy’ section. Source: http://www. antidiaploki.gr/article/843/exwteriki_politiki.html?category_id=5 and http://www. alianta.md/uploads/docs/1238016992_03.04_Centrist_Union_signs_cooperation_ agreement_with_ruling_party_in_Russia.pdf Checked: 2015-09-28

¹¹⁴Union of Centrist official party page, ‘The euro as the currency of Greece’ section. Source: http://www.antidiaploki.gr/article/854/to_eyrw_ws_nomisma_tis_elladas. html?category_id=5 2015-09-28

¹¹⁵Movement of Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘With old selves, new society becomes’ by D. Reppas. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diavasame/ me-paleous-eaftous-kenouria-kinonia-den-ginete-dimitris-reppas-17-09-2015/ Checked: 2015-09-22

¹¹⁶Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-22

¹¹⁷Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration – The European Union at a crossroads’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-22

¹¹⁸The Greek Reporter article by I. Zokakou titled: ‘Papandreou announces new Greek political party: Democrat Socialists Movement’. Source: http://greece. greekreporter.com/2015/01/03/papandreou-announces-new-greek-political-partynamed- democrat-socialists-movement/ Checked: 2015-09-22

¹¹⁹Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration – European Union at a crossroads’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-22

¹²⁰Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration – The nature of the international crisis’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-22

¹²¹Harris Mylonas “Democratic Politics in Times of Austerity: The limits of forced reform in Greece”. P. 5-8. Source: http://home.gwu.edu/~mylonas/Democratic%20 Politics%20in%20Times%20of%20Austerity.pdf Checked: 2015-09-05

¹²²Kathimerini news article titled: ‘Tsipras: We are the party who believes in the European idea” 2015. Source: http://www.kathimerini.gr/31341/article/epikairothta/ politikh/tsipras-eimaste-komma-poy-pisteyoyme-sthn-eyrwpaikh-idea Checked: 2015-09-22

¹²³National election results of Greece database: 2009-2015. Source: http://www. electionresources.org/gr/data/#ELECTIONS

¹²⁴Y.Tsirbas & D. A. Sotiropoulos, “What do the Greek political elites think about Europe and the crisis?”. Hellenic Observatory. p.10-18 Source: http://www.lse. ac.uk/europeanInstitute/research/hellenicObservatory/CMS%20pdf/Publications/ GreeSE/GreeSE-No93.pdf Checked: 2015-09-25

¹²⁵Martens Centre for European studies. Between farce and tragedy: Four realities of SYRIZA in power.: Source: http://www.martenscentre.eu/sites/default/files/ publication-files/greece-realities-syriza-power_0.pdf

¹²⁶Two sided of Euroscepticism by P. Kopecky and C. Mudde. SAGE Publications – European Union Politics, London, Thousand Oaks CA, New Delhi; 2002.

¹²⁷Reuters article by Paul Clader titled: “Advice for Greece: Never play chicken with Germany” 2015. Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/07/02/whatgreeks- get-wrong-about-germany/ Checked: 2015-09-25

¹²⁸The Guardian article by Sean Farrell titled: “Q&A:what SYRIZA’s victory means for Greece and the EU bailout”. Source: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/ sep/21/syrizas-victory-greece-q-and-a-eu-bailout

¹²⁹BBC article titled: “Syriza split: what is next for Greece and bailout?”. Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34014817 Checked 2015.06.21.

¹³⁰The Wall Street Journal article by C. Forelle, N. Stamouli, A. Granitsas titled: ‘Syriza win in Greek elections sets up new Europe clash’. Source: http://www.wsj. com/articles/syriza-win-in-greek-election-sets-up-new-europe-clash-1422168982 Checked: 2015-09-15

¹³¹The Guardian article by J. Henley and I. Traynor titled: ‘Greek crisis: Syriza rebels form Popular Unity party ahead of election.” Source: http://www.theguardian.com/ world/2015/aug/21/greek-crisis-syriza-rebels-break-away-form-popular-unity-party Checked: 2015-09-25

¹³²In These Times article by A. Orphanides titled: ‘Why SYRIZA hasn’t threatened to leave the European Union-yet”. Source: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17638/ greece_eurozone Checked: 2015-09-12

¹³³World Socialist Web Site, article by Robert Stevens titled:’ SYRIZA’s Tsipras and Independent Greeks finalize new austerity coalition’ 2015. Source: https://www. wsws.org/en/articles/2015/09/22/gree-s22.html

¹³⁴Euractiv article by S. Michalopoulos titled: ‘SYRIZA decision to partner with Independent Greeks angers the S&D’. Source: http://www.euractiv.com/sections/ elections/syriza-decision-partner-independent-greeks-angers-sd-317823 Checked: 2015-09-23

¹³⁵The International Schiller Insittute. Interview with Panos Kammenos titled: ‘Greece and the silk road economic belt’. Source: http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com/ media/panos-kammenos-la-grece-et-la-nouvelle-route-de-la-soie/ Checked: 2015- 09-24

¹³⁶Reuters article by H. Papachirstou titled: ‘Greek conservative rebel battles German “domination”’. Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/23/uk-greeceinterview- idUKBRE83M1CS20120423

¹³⁷Independent Greeks official party policies and goals. Source: http://www. anexartitoiellines.gr/# Checked: 2015-09-25

¹³⁸The Wall Street journal article by N. Stamouli titled: ‘ Greece’s Parliament apsses austerity measures required for bailout.’ 2015. Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/ greeces-parliament-passes-austerity-measures-required-for-bailout-1437002734 Checked: 2015-09-22

¹³⁹The International Schiller Institute. Panos Kammenos speech 2014. Source: http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com/media/panos-kammenos-la-grece-et-lanouvelle- route-de-la-soie/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁴⁰Independent Greeks official party goals, ‘Our goals section’. Source: http://www. anexartitoiellines.gr/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁴¹Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁴²Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration – The European Union at a crossroads’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁴³Greek Reporter article by V. Mindova titled: ‘The split of PASOK’. Source: http:// www.grreporter.info/en/split_pasok/8030 Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁴⁴Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration – European Union at a crossroads’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-07

¹⁴⁵Miltos Kyrkos interview on EurActiv 2015. Source: http://www.euractiv.com/ video/potami-future-greece-lies-within-eurozone-311504 Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁴⁶The Washington Post article titled: ‘Election of new leader for Greek opposition party postponed’. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/electionof- new-leader-for-greek-opposition-party-postponed/2015/11/22/54d90ab6-9102- 11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁴⁷Reuters article by K. Tagaris titled: ‘Greek opposition leader’s U-turn opens path to power’. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/04/us-greece-samarasidUSTRE7A36D120111104# b35GIQMXUrSTSjvX.97 Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁴⁸New Democracy official party page. Press Office ‘K. Tsipras must understand that wishful thinking nor constitute or form foreign policy’. Source: http://nd.gr/ deltia-tipou/o-ktsipras-ofeilei-na-katanoisei-oti-ta-eyhologia-oyte-synistoyn-oytediamorfonoyn Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁴⁹PASOK Founding Declaration of Basic Principles and Goals (1974). Source: http://www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7 %CE%BC%CE%B1/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁵⁰PASOK official party page, ‘Our Goals’ Macroeconomic Framework – Budgetary balance section. Source: http://www.pasok.gr/%CE%BF%CE%B9- %C E % B 8 % C E % A D % C F % 8 3 % C E % B 5 % C E % B 9 % C F % 8 2 - %CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%82/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁵¹PASOK official party page, ‘The Movement’ Our Vision section. Source: http:// www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7%CE %BC%CE%B1/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁵²Golden Dawn International Newsroom. Golden Dawn’s take on 2014 EU elections. Source: http://golden-dawn-international-newsroom.blogspot.lt/2014/05/ eu-elections-2014-mother-of-all-battles.html Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁵³Cult Education Institute. Greece’s far right Golden Dawn party profile. Source: http://www.culteducation.com/group/1071-neo-nazis/26634-profile-greece-s-farright- golden-dawn-party.html Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁵⁴Golden Dawn International Newsroom. Golden Dawn party program. Section on ‘Geostrategic turn’. Source: http://golden-dawn-international-newsroom.blogspot. lt/p/the-program-of-golden-dawn.html Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁵⁵The Communist party of Greece official party page. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/ aboutKKE/history/ Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁵⁶The Communist party of Greece official party page, article titled: ‘No “second chance” for the anti-people plans and illusions.” Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/ articles/No-second-chance-for-the-anti-people-plans-and-illusions/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁵⁷The Communist party of Greece official party page, ‘European Communist meeting 2014’. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Introductory-Speech/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁵⁸Business Insider article by G. Lubin titled: ‘How the Greek Communist party plans to solve the crises. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-greekcommunist- party-plans-to-solve-the-crisis-2010-5 Checked: 2015-09-22

¹⁵⁹Jacobin article by N. Louritos titled: ‘Understanding the Greek Communists’. Source: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/understanding-the-greek-communists/ Checked: 2015-09-07

¹⁶⁰Union of Centrists official party page, ‘Foreign Policy’ section. Source: http:// www.antidiaploki.gr/article/843/exwteriki_politiki.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015-09-07

¹⁶¹Union of Centrist official party page, ‘Foreign Policy’ section. Source: http://www. antidiaploki.gr/article/843/exwteriki_politiki.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015- 09-07

¹⁶²Union of Centrists official party page, ‘European Union’ section. Source: http:// www.antidiaploki.gr/article/840/eyrwpaiki_enwsi.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015-09-07

¹⁶³EurActiv.com, “New party shakes Greek political scene”. Press article 2014. Source: http://www.euractiv.com/sections/eu-elections-2014/new-party-shakesgreek- political-scene-301531 Checked: 2015-09-15

¹⁶⁴The River (POTAMI) official party page, ‘Our positions’ section. Source: http:// topotami.gr/theseis/eksoteriki-politiki/ Checked: 2015-09-08

¹⁶⁵Interview with Stavros Theodorakis 2015. Source: http://topotami.gr/stavrostheodorakis- in-an-interview-with-the-german-daily-faz-when-tsipras-fails-we-willbe- ready/ Checked: 2015-09-09

¹⁶⁶The River (POTAMI) official party page, ‘Our Positions’ section. Source: http:// topotami.gr/theseis/eksoteriki-politiki/ Checked: 2015-09-08

¹⁶⁷Ekathimerini.com. News article “Greece’s POTAMI party to sit in the same EU group as PASOK”. Source: http://www.ekathimerini.com/160274/article/ ekathimerini/news/greeces-potami-party-to-sit-in-same-eu-group-as-pasok

¹⁶⁸The Toc News Agency 2015, ‘The River’s Stavros Theorodakis: Potential kingmaker’. Source: http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/politics/article/the-rivers-stavrostheodorakis- potential-kingmaker Checked: 2015-09-15

¹⁶⁹SYRIZA official party page, ‘Statues’ section. Source: http://www.syriza.gr/page/ katastatiko.html#.Vl3ChPkrKUk 2015-09-08

¹⁷⁰See Perception of EU and Camps of Euroscepticism

¹⁷¹SYRIZA official party page, ‘Founding declaration’ section named Principals of our strategy. Source: http://www.syriza.gr/page/idrytikh-diakhryksh.html#.Vl3Ch_ krKUk Checked: 2015-09-08

¹⁷²World Socialist Website article by A. Lantier titled ‘ SYRIZA launches drastic attack on pensions under terms of EU bailout of Greece’. Source: https://www. wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/17/gree-o17.html Checked: 2015-09-08

¹⁷³Martens Centre for European Studies. ‘Between farse and tragedy: Four realities of SYRIZA in power. Source: http://www.martenscentre.eu/sites/default/files/ publication-files/greece-realities-syriza-power_0.pdf

¹⁷⁴Aspen Institute article by J. Psaropoulos titled ‘ How SYRIZA came to power’. Source: http://www.aspeninstitute.cz/en/article/1-2015-how-syriza-came-to-power/ Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁷⁵The Guardian article by P. Mason titled: ‘Hope begins today’. Source: http://www. theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/28/greek-people-wrote-history-how-syriza-roseto- power Checked: 2015-09-22

¹⁷⁶See SYRYZA’s placement in a camp of Soft Euroscepticism in section two of this paper.

¹⁷⁷Aspen Institute article by J. Psaropoulos titled ‘ How SYRIZA came to power’. Source: http://www.aspeninstitute.cz/en/article/1-2015-how-syriza-came-to-power/ Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁷⁸SYRIZA’s stance. N. Nikolakakis, University of Dundee. Source: https://ecpr.eu/ Filestore/PaperProposal/0d6cd3e8-4b20-42f8-a8b6-fd83d8364234.pdf

¹⁷⁹L. Fatsis, ‘Greece must put aside divisive rhetoric if a solution to the country’s crisis is to be found’. London School of Economics and Political Science. Source: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/03/19/greece-must-put-aside-divisiverhetoric- if-a-solution-to-the-countrys-crisis-is-to-be-found/ Checked: 2015-09-23

¹⁸⁰The Wall Street Journal article by I. Talley titled: ‘The History of the IMF and Greece’s bailout’. Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2014/01/31/the-history-ofthe- imf-and-greeces-bailout/?mod=WSJBlog Checked: 2015-09-22

¹⁸¹The Daily Telegraph article by N. Squires titled: ‘Greek election: who are Independent Greeks’. Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ greece/11369309/Greek-election-who-are-Independent-Greeks.html Checked: 2015- 09-22

¹⁸²National Post article by H. Papachristou titled: ‘Greek conservative rebel battles German domination’. Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/greekconservative- rebel-battles-german-domination Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁸³Independent Greeks official party page, Press Office: ‘M. Chrysoveloni “legislators’ unfenced vineyard for foreigners’. Source: http://anexartitoiellines.gr/ post.php?post_id=4220 Checked: 2015-09-22

¹⁸⁴Independent Greeks official party page, Government program- Foreign policy. Source: http://anexartitoiellines.gr/gov_program.php Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁸⁵BBC News agency article titled: ‘Greece anti-bailout leader Tsipras made prime minister’. Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30981950 Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁸⁶The Independent news article by L. Dearden titled: ‘Independent Greeks: who are SYRIZA’s right-wing coalition partners and what do they want?’. Source: http:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/independent-greeks-who-are-syrizasright- wing-coalition-partners-and-what-do-they-want-10003224.html Checked: 2015- 09-10

¹⁸⁷Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration – European Union at a crossroads’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-06

¹⁸⁸Reuters article by J. Mackenzie titled: ‘Former Greek PM Papandreou sets up new party, complicating election outlook’. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/ us-greece-politics-idUSKBN0KB0VD20150102#F8yYolqwSaQJ7DtU.97 Checked: 2015-09-22

¹⁸⁹Turkish Weekly article titled: ‘Mobility in the center-left in view of the Greek elections.’ Source: http://www.turkishweekly.net/2015/08/25/news/mobility-in-thecenter- left-in-view-of-the-greek-elections/

¹⁹⁰Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration – The European Union at a crossroads’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁹¹The Greek Reporter article by I. Zokakou titled: ‘Papandreou announces new Greek political party: Democrat Socialists Movement’. Source: http://greece. greekreporter.com/2015/01/03/papandreou-announces-new-greek-political-partynamed- democrat-socialists-movement/ Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁹²See Perception of EU – New Democracy. ND previously objective of European integration later supported Greece’s entrance into the European Economic Community (a precursor of EU).

¹⁹³Independent Balkan News, ‘Interview with president of New Democracy Evaggelos Meimarakis’ 2015. Source: http://sofiaglobe.com/2015/09/17/greekelections- interview-with-evaggelos-meimarakis-president-of-new-democracy/ Checked: 2015-09-11

¹⁹⁴CVCE – innovating European Studies, ‘Address by Konstantinos Karamanlis at the signature of the association agreement between Greece and the EEC’. Source: http://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/address_by_konstantinos_karamanlis_at_the_ signature_of_the_association_agreement_between_greece_and_the_eec_9_ july_1961-en-9d82240f-52e9-4965-aede-0647fec81cd5.html Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁹⁵Channel News Asia article titled: ‘Campaigning in Greece draws to close, election results in balance’. Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/greeceelection- campaign/2135218.html Checked: 2015-09-10

¹⁹⁶Greek Reporter article by A. Makris titled: ‘New Democracy Leader: Bring the deal by Sunday so that Greece can stay in the Euro’. Source: http://greece. greekreporter.com/2015/07/11/new-democracy-leader-bring-a-deal-by-sunday-sothat- greece-can-stay-in-the-euro/ Checked: 2015-09-22

¹⁹⁷Movement for Democratic Socialists official party page, ‘Founding Declaration – European Union at a crossroads’. Source: http://www.tokinima.gr/diakiryksi/ Checked: 2015-09-22

¹⁹⁸PASOK Founding Declaration of Basic Principles and Goals (1974). Source: http://www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7 %CE%BC%CE%B1/

¹⁹⁹See PASOK’s Perception of EU part of this paper.

²⁰⁰EurActiv. ‘Syriza warming up to PASOK. Source: http://www.euractiv.com/ sections/elections/syriza-warming-pasok-317360 Checked: 2015-09-11

²⁰¹Greece2Day article titled: ‘Pasok leader Fofi Gennimata appeals to EU leadership for initiatives to end crisis’. Source: http://greece2day.com/index.php/politics/ item/3603-pasok-leader-fofi-gennimata-appeals-to-eu-leadership-for-initiatives-toend- crisis Checked: 2015-09-11

²⁰²PASOK official party page, ‘The Movement’ – National independence. Source: http://www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7 %CE%BC%CE%B1/ Checked: 2015-09-10

²⁰³See PASOK’s Founding Declaration 1974 on national independence. Source: http://www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7 %CE%BC%CE%B1/ Checked: 2015-09-06

²⁰⁴As a pro-EU party, PASOK still expresses soft form of Euroscepticism. See Measurement of Euroscepticism (Soft/Hard Euroscepticism) part of this paper.

²⁰⁵PASOK official party page, ‘The Movement’ Our Vision section. Source: http:// www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7%CE %BC%CE%B1/ Checked: 2015-09-06

²⁰⁶Cult Education Institute. Greece’s far right Golden Dawn party profile. Source: http://www.culteducation.com/group/1071-neo-nazis/26634-profile-greece-s-farright- golden-dawn-party.html

²⁰⁷Golden Dawn International Newsroom. Golden party program. Source: http:// golden-dawn-international-newsroom.blogspot.lt/p/the-program-of-golden-dawn. html Checked: 2015-09-07

²⁰⁸See Perception of EU section in this paper.

²⁰⁹Communist Party of Greece. Pol. Program of the KKE. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/ en/articles/Programme-of-the-KKE/ Checked: 2015-09-07

²¹⁰The Communist Party of Greece. “No “second chance” for the anti-people plans and illusions”. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/No-second-chance-for-theanti- people-plans-and-illusions/ Checked: 2015-09-10

²¹¹The Communist Party of Greece. Party official take on the European Union described in the Introductory Speech of European Communists Meeting 2014. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Introductory-Speech/ Checked: 2015-09-10

²¹²The Communist party of Greece official party page, ‘European Communist meeting 2014’. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Introductory-Speech/ Checked: 2015-09-11

²¹³‘Stavros Theodorakis’s River party aims to get Greek politics flowing in the right direction.’ The Guardian newspaper, 2014 article. Source: http://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2014/mar/13/stavros-theodorakis-river-greek-potamieuropean- elections Checked: 2015-09-10

²¹⁴Ekathimerini.com. News article “Greece’s POTAMI party to sit in the same EU group as PASOK”. Source: http://www.ekathimerini.com/160274/article/ ekathimerini/news/greeces-potami-party-to-sit-in-same-eu-group-as-pasok Checked: 2015-09-22

²¹⁵Union of Centrists official party page, ‘European Union’ section. Source: http:// www.antidiaploki.gr/article/840/eyrwpaiki_enwsi.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015- 09-10

²¹⁶Union of Centrists official party page, ‘Prologue’ section. Source: http://www. antidiaploki.gr/article/845/prologos.html?category_id=5 Checked: 2015-09-10

²¹⁷Active Eurosceptic parties should currently express Euroscepticism in a sufficient form for it to be used in current Greek politics. See Eurosceptic elements in political parties by Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart.

²¹⁸Reuters article by Harry Papachristou titled: ‘Greek conservatives rebel battles German “domination”. Reuters interview with Panos Kammenos. Source: http:// uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/23/uk-greece-interview-idUKBRE83M1CS20120423 Checked: 2015-09-22

²¹⁹Independent Greeks party site. Party founding declaration of 2012 Feb.24. Source: http://www.anexartitoiellines.gr/diak.php Checked: 2015-09-10

²²⁰The International Schiller Institute. Panos Kammenos speech 2014. Source: http://newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com/media/panos-kammenos-la-grece-et-lanouvelle- route-de-la-soie/ Checked: 2015-09-10

²²¹Golden Dawn International Newsroom. Golden party program. Source: http:// golden-dawn-international-newsroom.blogspot.lt/p/the-program-of-golden-dawn. html

²²²Communist Party of Greece. Pol. Program of the KKE. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/ en/articles/Programme-of-the-KKE/ Checked: 2015-09-06

²²³The Communist Party of Greece. “With a strong KKE we can take a step on the path to overthrow the system.”. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/With-astrong- KKE-we-can-take-a-step-on-the-path-to-overthrow-the-system/ Checked: 2015-09-06

²²⁴The Communist Party of Greece. ’General strike on 3 December’. Source: http:// inter.kke.gr/en/articles/GENERAL-STRIKE-ON-3-DECEMBER/ Checked: 2015-09-06

²²⁵Described in ‘Measurement of Euroscepticism’ section of this paper.

²²⁶The Communist Party of Greece. ‘Introducing speech of the KKE for the European Communist meeting’. Source: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Introductoryspeech- of-the-KKE-for-the-European-Communist-Meeting/ Checked: 2015-09-06

²²⁷PASOK Founding Declaration of Basic Principles and Goals (1974). Source: http://www.pasok.gr/%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B7 %CE%BC%CE%B1/ Checked: 2015-09-10

²²⁸Reactionary is more indicative of light compromising critique of EU, while provocative tends to be more conditional/rejective towards EU.

²²⁹Reuters article by J. Mackenzie titled: ‘Former Greek PM Papandreou sets up new party, complicating election outlook’. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/ us-greece-politics-idUSKBN0KB0VD20150102#F8yYolqwSaQJ7DtU.97 Checked: 2015-09-22

²³⁰Blomberg News. ‘Greek Opposition Leader Says would join coalition with Tsipras’ 2015. Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-07/ greek-opposition-leader-says-would-join-coalition-with-tsipras Checked: 2015-09-23

²³¹Refer to section of Sources of Euroscepticism - New Democracy.

²³²The Washington Post article titled: ‘Election of new leader for Greek opposition party postponed’. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/electionof- new-leader-for-greek-opposition-party-postponed/2015/11/22/54d90ab6-9102- 11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html Checked: 2015-11-24