Greece Before the Crisis: The Critical Years in Domestic Politics

In this chapter, we offer a historical analysis of the Greek political market and Greek politicians’ views in particular, on the issue regarding the costs and benefits of Greece’s economy joining the euro area. We used material from various sources (e.g., archives of the Greek Parliament, interviews with prominent politicians of the time, published laws) to present and analyze their view on Greece’s economic possibilities to adjust to such a demanding common currency environment. This chapter presents the results of this fieldwork. We placed particular emphasis on the 1990–1993 period, where a liberal government set an agenda of structural reforms that remains pertinent even today and paved the way for the fiscal adjustment to the Maastricht convergence criteria, so that the economy could join the single currency. Our summary draws from discussions within the Parliament, on important relevant topics, such as the debate preceding the ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht by the Greek Parliament in July 1992 and other key discussions with regard to the economic policy of the government. Such are the discussions in the Parliament ahead of the votes for the annual budgets and the inaugural statements on policy from the time the government had started its term, and sought the vote of confidence of the Parliament in the summer of 1990.