Greeks vow to get E.E.C. share

Press, 24 April 1984, Page 6

Greeks vow to get E.E.C. share

By

BRUCE CLARK,

of

Reuter (through NZPA) Athens As the possibility of a Greek pull-out from the European Economic Community recedes, the country’s governing Socialists are hardening their antiCommunity rhetoric and pledging to fight for Greek national interests from within the grouping. The Prime Minister, Dr Andreas Papandreou, who as Opposition Leader strongly opposed Athens’ entry to the Community, has reaffirmed his view that Greece should never have joined and said that the results of membership continue to be negative. “We were absolutely right when we said, ‘no’, to membership,” he told Pasok (Socialist) Party deputies last week. “We are in continual danger ... of seeing our industry effectively disappear and our country turn into a hotel for the rest of Europe. But neither Dr Papandreou nor other Government officials have given any hint that withdrawal is a practical possibility. Instead they have pledged efforts for new forms of Community

aid to help Greece catch up with its partners. Left-wing Greek opposition to the Community is traditionally based on the view that it reinforces Greece’s place on the periphery of capitalism, exposed to exploitation and competition from the powerful northern European States.

Dr Papandreou has sharpened his attacks on northern European States for taking what he calls a narrowly fiscal approach to the financial crisis that plagues the Community. Recently he has begun attacking fellow Socialists in France, as well as Conservative-governed Britain, and West Germany. “On the question of financial discipline, France is just as tough as the other two countries,” he has said. Greece set up its demands for extra help in a memorandum to Brussels in March, 1982, and the Community’s executive Commission came up a year later with detailed suggestions, mainly subject to member States’ approval about how they could be made. Athens, which was forced to shelve the memorandum issue when it had the Community

presidency between July and December last year, is now reminding its partners that many of its demands are still on the table and it wants quick satisfaction. Disappointed that France seems to be losing enthusiasm for a long-awaited SUS 6 billion programme to help Mediterranean regions of the Community, Athens is saying that it must get its share of the money, whatever happens to the rest.

“We want the memorandum and we want it all,” the European Affairs Minis-

ter, Mr Theodore Pangalos, said recently. He has won some satisfaction in the last two months with the unblocking of SUSIOO million ($152 million) of Community money to help mental hospitals and job training in Greece, and a statement by all 10 Foreign Ministers that Greece’s other demands should be met. But despite the Ministers’ statement of principle, Greece expects to have to fight point-by-point for aid to sectors including transport, forestry, and industrial development. Greece’s conservative Opposition, which steered the country into the Community, accuses the Government of hypocrisy in asserting that the results of entry continue to be negative. For them, the sums are simple. Greece needs about SUS 3 billion a year to finance its current account deficit and pay off loans. Roughly SUSI billion of that money came from Brussels last year. Of the remaining SUS2 billion that must be borrowed abroad, up to JUSSOO million are offered by the Community-backed European Investment Bank on much- softer terms than

Greece could hope for if it were not a member. Government officials point to the country’s agricultural trade, which plunged from healthy surpluses into deficit as soon as entry brought the efficiently produced meat and dairy produucts of northern Europe flooding into Greece. The farm trade deficit with the rest of the Community was halved last year to $8.4 billion drachmas (now SUSBO million, SNZI2I million), but Greece is far from restoring the six billion drachmas (then about SUSIOO million) surplus it enjoyed in 1980. Meanwhile, farmers’ incomes, which showed real increases of about 5 per cent in 1981 and 1982, fell by the same amount last year, and the outlook for this year is uncertain.

If all Greece’s current demands for special aid are met, it could receive about SUS2 billion from the Community Mediterranean Programme and the same amount in aid for its own development plans between now and the end of the decade.

Athens, in seeking to persuade its partners it

should get this money, has presented its memorandum demands as a way of ensuring Greece’s tighter integration into the bloc. The Greek-sponsored text of the memorandum that Community Foreign Ministers adopted in Brussels earlier this month, refers to, “permitting Greece’s full entry into the Community system in a harmonious and mutually beneficial way.” Conservative Greek newspapers have argued that there is a contradiction between sharply attacking the Community on one hand and seeking closer integration on the other. But the juggling act of strongly nationalistic rhetoric at home combined with a softer image presented to the outside world is one that the Government has managed with some success in other areas of foreign policy, such as ties with N.A.T.O.

Despite several statements by Government Ministers that, “effectively we do not belong to N.A.T.0.”, and periodic clashes with N.A.T.O. command, Greece continues to participate in all treaty committees and in some alliance exercises.