This book explores the Greco-German relationship from the first major post-war agreement between the two countries in 1953 to Greece's entry into the European Community (EC) in 1981, and asks how this relationship fits into, and changes, the narrative of European integration. The book highlights West Germany's role in shaping Greece's development model and argues that Greece's accession to the EC in 1981 had a long history in the modernization strategies adopted by the two countries as early as the 1950s. The success, not the failure, of those strategies lies at the root of Greece's lingering balance of payments problems: the ever-widening trade deficit with Germany, the country's main trading partner, was the price of Greek economic growth in the decades following the war. By addressing this three-decade story of uneasy continuity, the book offers new insights into core-periphery relations in Europe, questions the conventional wisdom about Greece's path to Europe, and challenges the way the so-called North-South divide has been adduced to explain the recent euro crisis. In doing so, the book calls attention to past cooperation between leading political and business circles in Greece and Germany, and seeks to contribute to deconstructing the 'blame game' that began in the two countries at the height of the Greek crisis. Approaching Greco-German relations from the perspective of the history of business, the author argues that larger economic and social forces impacted the political pressures at play in the arena of international relations and European integration during the second half of the twentieth century, making this a useful and insightful read for European historians and political scientists alike.

Book Information
ISBN 9783031043703
Author Christos Tsakas
Format Hardback
Imprint Springer International Publishing AG
Publisher Springer International Publishing AG
Weight(grams) 148g