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Article: Greece: like any other European country?
- Article from:
- The National Interest
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 The National Interest, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In the early 1990s, it became fashionable to portray Greece as an awkward partner or indeed a black sheep in the European Union: an economic laggard, falling behind in the European income league, with large budget deficits and double-digit inflation, who also acted in a particularly uncooperative manner in the attempts made by its Western allies to stabilize the Balkan region. This followed a decade of economic mismanagement and rhetorical outbursts in the area of foreign policy, coupled with the habit of adding dissenting footnotes to joint communiques issued by the European Community (as it was still called at the time) and NATO.
For those who use the term ...