After the Crisis: EU Issue Voting in Greece

Abstract

Compared to the other countries examined in this volume, Greece is the one that suffered the most financially during the economic crisis. Public protest and growing political discontent emerged as a reaction to the strict austerity policies introduces, with European institutions becoming the symbol and the European Union (EU) becoming the main target of discontent. To this end, the Greek case offers a useful example of a country in which EU issues around the economic crisis polarized the general public. This analysis suggests the salience of the EU issue was greater during the crisis, with negative references towards the EU being widespread even among moderate media outlets. However, public opinion analysis suggests the EU issue can only explain the vote for the two parties competing to govern—Syriza and New Democracy (ND). While Syriza successfully closed the circle of the memoranda agreed upon by the Papandreou government in 2009, ND mobilized the emotions of citizens and the public by creating a “rally around the flag” that determined the outcome of the elections.

Introduction

On the face of it, Greek politics has finally “returned to normal” as in 2019, after more than ten years of austerity politics, populism and legitimacy crises, the country elected a strong executive that enjoyed a sizable parliamentary majority. After a long period of polarization and division, it seems the political system has finally reached some kind of resolution.

Nevertheless, this apparent return to normalcy remains fragile. While everyday politics appear calm, public opinion is far less settled. There is still a lot of mistrust in the political system and democracy, while political apathy and cynicism remain widespread. There is a consensus among scholars that the 2015 referendum accentuated deep divisions in Greek politics, in a manner similar to the 2016 EU membership referendum in the United Kingdom and the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland (Hobolt, 2016). As was the case during the Brexit debate (Hobolt et al., 2020), a new identity divide emerged in the wake of the Greek referendum that has split society into opposing camps—those supporting the memorandum and those against it.

This cleavage between the supporters and the opponents of the memorandum has become the primary division around which other social cleavages are realigning. Research suggests that, along with cultural and national issues such as views on the European Union, social polarization and party preferences can reinforce ideological distinctions in society (Alwin & Tufiş, 2016; Druckman et al., 2021; Jacoby, 2014). In the Greek case, this polarization, which is based on national and cultural issues, is being gradually absorbed by partisanship and has become the primary cleavage diving citizens much more than any other salient issues (Robison & Moskowitz, 2019; Westwood et al., 2018).

The aim of this chapter is to examine the extent to which the vote choice of Greek citizens is driven by European considerations. In pursuing this question, we carry out a comprehensive examination of the role of EU issues on voter choice. We study voter choice in Greece during a critical period for the EU: during the economic crisis, the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU and the rise of populist and nationalistic sentiments. The Greek case provides a useful example of a country in which EU issues surrounding the economic crisis were responsible for polarizing public opinion.

EU Issue Voting in Context

At the beginning of the European sovereign debt crisis, eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to provide temporary financial assistance to the three Member States hardest hit by the crisis: Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Soon after the first rescue package, and amid fears the debt crisis would spread to other indebted EU Member States, EU finance ministers funded the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).¹ From a political perspective, allowing Greece, which was the first country to receive financial support, to become bankrupt would have been interpreted as the EU being unable to protect one of its oldest Member States, which could have serious repercussions on the European integration process (Ozturk & Sozdemir, 2015). The main aim of the bailout agreements between European institutions (European Commission [EC], European Central Bank [ECB] and the IMF, which became known as the troika) and national governments was to ensure a reduction in the debt of those countries hit by the crisis. This was to be achieved primarily through the promotion of a series of austerity measures, which included curbs on government spending, increasing direct and indirect taxes and property taxation (Nezi & Katsanidou, 2014). At the European level, the memorandum sought to prevent the eurozone from collapsing when the European sovereign debt crisis broke out in 2008.

From the beginning of the economic crisis, the political discourse was dominated by accusations of responsibility for the economic crisis and for blaming this or that party for signing yet another bailout agreement. During that period two antagonistic groups emerged: one that believed the memorandum was necessary to overcome the crisis; another that believed the memorandum was the reason why the crisis was so deep and prolonged. At the time, it was clear the austerity measures introduced created deep divisions within Greek society, creating a social polarization that was so profound it challenged national and European unity.

During that period, polls recorded strong sentiments of animosity towards Europe’s leading powers that were seen to be supporting tough austerity measures as the solution to the crisis (Michailidou, 2017). For example, in Greece there was a wide popular belief that Germany was profiting from the Greek crisis (Allen & Chazan, 2018), beliefs that were being fuelled by existing experiences of victimization and a perception of victimhood among the general public (Antoniou et al., 2020). The economic crisis reinforced these beliefs, with issues of national identity competing with issues related to national self-image (Lialiouti & Bithymitris, 2017).

Yet, the crisis also fuelled stereotypes among the creditor countries. The mainstream media and radical right-wing parties in central Europe, such as the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), painted a portrait of the “lazy” Greeks in contrast to “hard working” West Europeans. As a result, solidarity in the EU was mainly expressed within national borders (Kohut et al., 2012). Public protests and growing political discontent emerged to challenge the European orientation of the “debtor” countries as a response to the introduction of strict austerity policies (Karyotis & Rüdig, 2015).

Traditionally, Greek citizens supported Greek membership of the EU and tended to be positive about European integration. In the wake of the economic crisis in 2008, however, attitudes towards the EU changed dramatically, and from 2009 onwards the trend was clear: the vast majority of the Greek citizens have negative views of the EU, much more negative than the EU average. The EU’s involvement in the implementation of austerity measures meant the issue of the economy and the EU became interlinked (Katsanidou & Otjes, 2016). However, this was not the only issue linked with the EU. The economic crisis also coincided with a refugee crisis, with thousands of refugees arriving on the Greek islands of Chios, Kos, Lesvos and Samos every day. Most important of all, this multifaceted crisis reinforced existing perceptions of the EU and feelings of resentment among Greeks, almost 80% of whom said they distrusted the EU.

Associating the state of the country’s economy with developments at the EU level was commonplace among the general public, largely since the austerity measures were negotiated with European institutions. As a result, and due to the new divisions within the party system, new parties emerged and old parties collapsed. Between 2009 and 2019, the Greek party system changed drastically. Before the crisis, two parties alternated in government: left-wing PASOK and right-wing ND. Alongside them, smaller left- and right-wing parties would also gain some parliamentary representation, including the Communist Party and Syriza on the left, and the newly formed LAOS on the right. Traditionally parties competed along left–right ideological grounds; however, the modernization of the early 2000s caused old divisions to fade and new political issues to emerge. During the economic crisis, the traditional left–right dimension disappeared to be replaced by a schism around economic policies and the EU (Nezi & Katsanidou, 2014).

Greece historically was among those countries with high levels of support for the European Union and the process of European integration. From the beginning of the economic crisis, only the Communist Party (KKE) held a strong anti-EU position and openly supported Greece’s exit from the European Union. All mainstream and governmental parties, such as PASOK and ND, as well as the radical right-wing party LAOS, supported the country’s EU membership and the process of European integration.

The pro-European parties also supported economic reforms, while anti-European parties opposed austerity measures introduced at the behest of the troika (Nezi, 2012). This can also help us understand the coalition government that involved a party of radical left—Syriza—and the radical right-wing Independent Greeks. For the former, opposition to the austerity, and for the latter, a populist discourse on the EU, played a central role in their election campaigns.

The association of austerity measures with the EU has a number of implications for Greek politics. First, if the public did not become more Eurosceptic, they certainly became more critical of the EU. Second, the economic crisis led parties that otherwise supported European integration towards a more Eurosceptic position, which was certainly the case with ND while it was in opposition (Gemenis & Nezi, 2015; Lefkofridi & Nezi, 2020). It was this new divide that explains the coalition between Syriza and the Independent Greeks.

In June 2019, a month before the elections, it was clear ND was ahead in voting intentions and heading for victory at the polls. The party had a substantial lead over the other parties on all salient political issues, including austerity and the agreement between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. The 2019 parliamentary elections were the first since the outbreak of the 2008 economic crisis in which the government did not have to implement a new set of austerity policies after Athens had become the final country to exit from the financial bailouts in August 2018. This resulted in economic news during the election campaign being generally more positive than it had been in previous years.

There is a broad agreement in the literature that the economy is an important driver of shifts in party support between elections. However, there remains some controversy over the specifics of the economic voting models during the economic crisis and the mechanism behind the economic conditions as a consequence of policies set out by international institutions in collaboration with national governments and the EU. Economic voting had become a positional issue and no longer a valance issue (Nezi & Katsanidou, 2014), with every debate on economic issues structured around the question of whether or not the Greek government will honour its agreements with the other eurozone and if Greece would leave the eurozone (Gemenis, 2013; Gemenis and Nezi, 2012, 2015).

Freire and Lobo (2005) and Nezi (2012) conducted early analyses of how macroeconomic conditions and individual preferences affect the vote in Greece. Data from the MAPLE pre-election study suggest exiting the bailout agreements has not translated into more general optimism. The vast majority of respondents believe the economy had deteriorated and three out of four believed the same about their personal economic circumstances. The balance of opinion regarding the performance of the incumbent in government has shifted sharply towards negative evaluations around the time of the July 2019 elections. Despite the efforts made by Syriza’s leader Alexis Tsipras to convince the electorate the end of “memorandums” had been reached, voters continued to believe his coalition with the Independent Greeks had played a leading role in ensuring the extension of austerity measures and the implementation of additional taxes and austerity policies after his first term in power.

Politicization of the EU in the Media and Parliamentary Debates

Since the beginning of the economic crisis, there seems to have been a transformation in the political culture of the Greek public, one that has altered their values as a result of the changing economic conditions. This transformation seems to affect the position citizens take on political issues and has created a long-term tendency to alter existing patterns of political competition. This suggests political conflicts that are visible at the individual level are also likely to be present at the party level. We would expect to find evidence of these conflicts in the media and parliamentary debates, which implies the EU may have become an extension of domestic politics as a consequence of its involvement in the bailout agreement, domestic and European issues have come together on the issue of austerity politics.

Though the overall expectation would have been that the polarization on the EU issue would have been reflected or even driven by the media, existing data as shown in Table 9.1 suggests the opposite.

In our analysis, we examined two national daily newspapers, the centre-right Kathimerini and the centre-left Ta Nea. Table 9.1 reports the salience of the EU issue, the tone and the percentage of negative attitudes during all elections from 2004 until 2019.

As expected, during the economic crisis years from 2012 onwards the salience of the EU issue is greater compared to the period prior to the crisis. While the salience of the issue is increasing, which can be explained by the austerity measures and the role of European institutions, the tone on average remains positive, while the percentage of negative articles is not significantly different compared to the period before the economic crisis (Fig. 9.1).

Fig. 9.1

EU politicization, 2004–2019

Typically, the EU issue has not been politicized by the mainstream parties in Greece, largely because both PASOK and ND are pro-EU. However, in recent decades, mainly as a result of the implementation of austerity measures, opposition parties have successfully employed the European issue in their appeals to voters who are against the austerity measures (Lefkofridi & Nezi, 2020).

Because of the MAPLE project, it was possible to measure the level of contestation on the EU issue in the Greek parliament from 2000—a period of prosperity—until 2019, the end of the economic crisis. Contestation is determined by whether a sentence discusses EU-related issues in a negative way.² The trend is clear, the economic crisis sparked a wave of high levels of politicization of the EU issue, and Grexit (2015) was the peak. This result comes as no surprise: the public was divided on the issue, as were the parties. The divisions that emerged at the individual level are also visible in the party system.

In the literature, Europe is described as an issue that cuts across the traditional left–right dimension (Fieldhouse et al., 2021), and this became apparent during the economic crisis. The literature also suggests mainstream parties will have fewer incentives to compete on the EU issue (Hooghe et al., 2002) while challenger parties will emphasize the extremes of the EU issue (De Vries & Hobolt, 2012). Figure 9.2 supports this hypothesis: higher levels of contestation are observed among challenger parties, particularly among Golden Dawn, the Union of Centrists and the Communist Party (KKE). Among the mainstream parties, the level of contestation is significantly lower, with the main party in the coalition government (Syriza) reporting the lowest score. This pattern can also be observed in those parties positioned to the left and the right of the ideological spectrum, with Golden Dawn and KKE scoring equally high.

Fig. 9.2

EU Contestation in parliamentary debates

Figure 9.3 provides a concise view of the evidence reported in Fig. 9.2. This is done by examining the tone of the parliamentary debates on the EU issue. The tone of the speech is the mean of the sentiment scores obtained for each sentence that mentioned the EU. The results indicate that on average both right-wing and left-wing parties debate EU-related issues in a positive tone. However, the factor that differentiates them is whether or not the party is in government or opposition. Syriza and Antonis Samaras’s ND provide a clear illustration of this. During the economic crisis, when the EU issue was politicized, these two parties in opposition discussed EU-related issues in a less positive way compared to when they were in government. Parties in government needed to negotiate with European institutions on austerity policies and, following Peter Mair’s argument, they had to be responsible and respectful towards international institutions such as the EU. This finding is consistent with existing literature on contestation on the EU issue. Radical parties, and particularly radical right-wing parties, have become associated with negative views of the EU in an attempt to gain electoral support (Down & Han, 2021).

Fig. 9.3

Tone in parliamentary debates

By 2019, the majority of Greek citizens (59%) once again had a positive view of the EU. While the party system had been substantially polarized around the EU issue, by 2019 there was a general feeling the worst had passed. Consequently, the issues dominating the political campaign were not only about austerity measures or Greece’s membership of the EU.

Modelling EU Issue Voting in 2019

The following section provides a series of competing models aiming to examine the impact of perceptions about the EU on vote choice while controlling for a series of issues monopolizing the political debate. In 2019, for the first time in almost a decade, the issue of austerity politics is no longer the sole issue of the election campaign. In contrast, national issues, such as the Prespa Agreement, are at the forefront. The models presented below examine the explanatory power of attitudes towards the EU in contrast to issues related to the economy and two national issues—the agreement with Skopje and the law banning police from entering university campuses, which is commonly known as the asylum law.

Towards the end of the Syriza-led coalition’s time in office, government austerity no longer monopolized the political discourse. In August 2018, European leaders heralded Greece’s exit from the international bailouts, marking the end of the eurozone’s financial crisis. Greece was the final eurozone country to conclude the bailout agreement. While similar help was given to Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus, Greece’s crisis was deeper and longer lasting. Compared to the events and disputes marking the vote for the first bailout agreement, the end of the bailout agreement went almost unnoticed.

Why did the Greeks vote in favour of the conservative Mitsotakis over Tsipras? The 2019 national elections were Greece’s sixth since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008. The elections ended the premiership of the left-wing populist leader who had promised to end austerity in 2015. Instead, Tsipra’s party implemented the toughest bailout package in the most iconic year of the crisis that was marked by a referendum, bank closures and two elections. If the general proposition that economic conditions affect party choice is accepted, then it follows that ND was not necessarily in an enviable position in 2019. The main economic indicator in ND’s favour was the unemployment rate. During the months preceding the elections, unemployment was relatively high (18.5%) compared to the EU average, and it remained high during throughout Syriza’s time in office.

Dispute Between Greece and North Macedonia

The economic crisis was no longer making front-page new; however, an old issue returned to prominence. In 1991, following the collapse of Yugoslavia, the Republic of Macedonia declared its independence. Since then, Greece has objected to it using Macedonia in the country’s name, arguing that doing so implied it had territorial claims to the neighbouring northern Greek province of Macedonia, which was associated with the legacy of Alexander the Great and his empire. Greece blocked Skopje’s accession to NATO and prevented it from integrating more formally with Europe, because it was using the name “Macedonia” without having any clear historical identity and cultural heritage to associate it with it.

However, after almost 27 years of mutual distrust, the Prespa Agreement was reached between Athens and Skopje, that saw the latter agreeing to call itself the Republic of North Macedonia in exchange for Greece dropping its opposition to its neighbour from joining NATO and strengthening its relations with the EU. In the summer of 2018, it was not clear how the electorate would react to the Prespa Agreement; however, one year later it was evident that one out of two respondents believed the agreement did not serve Greece’s interests at all. Admittedly, the months that followed were not easy for the government. As expected, there were massive demonstrations in both countries, while the conservative nationalist party ANEL abandoned the coalition government in opposition to the agreement.

The asylum law was initially implemented to protect free speech and academic freedom following the collapse of the military dictatorship. In recent years, however, many came to believe the law no longer serves its purpose, and that it had helped create a culture of violence in Greek universities. Rescinding this law formed a part of Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s election manifesto.

Explaining Voting in Greece’s 2019 General Elections

Multinomial regression analysis is employed where the dependent variable measures vote choice for the 2019 national election. The dependent variable is a categorical variable with voting choices being Syriza, the party in government, controlling all other parties in the parliament, namely ND, KINAL, KKE, Greek Solution and MERA25.

Traditionally, vote choice in Greece was the outcome of left–right orientations and attitudes towards the economy. As was the case in many other European countries, until recently party attachment was aligned with pre-existing historical divides, which created two main camps: those on the left and those on the right of the ideological spectrum. When this divide began to fade with the emergence of new issues in the political landscape, attitudes towards the economy and matters of accountability on economic-related policies began shaping vote choice. The first model controls for these two dimensions of Greek politics while at the same time controlling for a series of socio-demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, education, trade union membership and religiosity. Political ideology is measured as self-placement on the left–right (L–R) spectrum, where zero (0) corresponds to left and ten (10) to right. Individual perceptions about the economy were measured by asking participants in the survey to evaluate the state of the economy compared to a year ago—with higher values indicating positive evaluations. This model also includes individual attitudes towards the EU. Since the beginning of the crisis, the economy and the EU issues were closely linked, and Greek citizens become strongly critical of the EU and European institutions. Attitudes towards the EU are measured using a ten-point scale variable, where zero (0) indicates opposition to the concept of European integration and ten (10) strong support for it.

Figures 9.4 and 9.5 present the results of the analysis. As expected L–R ideology, economic perceptions and attitudes towards the EU did determine vote choice. The same holds for the national issues of the Prespa Agreement.

Fig. 9.4

Explaining the vote in Greece: EU and the economy (Note Average marginal effects and 95% confidence intervals, based on the results reported in Model 1 in Table 9.1)

Fig. 9.5

Explaining the vote in Greece: competing issues (Note Average marginal effects and 95% confidence intervals, based on the results reported in Model 2 in Table 9.1)

The issue of Europe differentiates vote choice between Syriza and its main competitors—ND and the centre-left KINAL. Both ND and KINAL—formerly known as PASOK—supported Greece’s EU membership and campaigned for a “Yes” vote during the referendum, while Tsipras’s government was campaigning for a “No”. The question posed to Greek voters during the referendum was whether or not to accept the economic proposals put forward by the ECB, EC and IMF. For Syriza, the referendum was a powerful weapon during the negotiation period and an opportunity for direct democracy, while for the Independent Greeks and the Golden Dawn, it was an opportunity to exert national sovereignty (Rori, 2016). The complicated wording of the question reflected and endorsed the divisions that emerged during the crisis. While the supporters of “Yes” framed the referendum as a vote for Greece’s EU membership and as a vote against Grexit, for the “No” supporters, it represented an opportunity for Greeks to express their opposition to austerity and regain their national pride and dignity (Crespy & Ladi, 2019). To this end, the issue of Europe is reflected in the two camps formed during the referendum.

Ideology has always been the most important predictor of vote choice in Greece (Nezi, 2012), which this analysis confirms. Voters identifying as right-wing will not support Syriza and will instead vote for either ND or the new radical right-party Greek Solution. Ideology will not differentiate the vote between Syriza and the parties that are close to it, such as KINAL and MERA25, this latter being the left-wing party formed by Syriza’s former Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis.

This analysis confirms previous studies that have examined the importance of the economy in voting behaviour in southern Europe, and in Greece in particular (Freire & Lobo, 2005; Kosmidis, 2014; Lewis-Beck & Nadeau, 2012; Nezi & Katsanidou, 2014). What all studies confirm is that Greek voters will “throw the rascals out” when they believe the economy is deteriorating. From this perspective, Syriza’s victory in the September 2015 elections was paradoxical, as just a few months earlier Tsipras had signed another bailout agreement that introduced a range of harsh austerity measures. The explanation lies in the fact there was not enough time between elections for the economic policies to be felt by citizens in their everyday life (Tsatsanis & Teperoglou, 2016).

The second model (Table 9.1) includes a series of salient domestic political issues that monopolized the 2019 election campaign, including the Prespa Agreement and the asylum law. The asylum issue differentiates the vote between Syriza and ND, which has traditionally been in favour of abolishing the law.

Of the two national issues examined, the issue of the name of the country’s northern neighbour had a strong impact on Syriza’s electoral fortune. With the vast majority of people opposing the agreement between Athens and Skopje, it is unsurprising that those who oppose the agreement will not support Syriza.

All scenarios tested above reinforced the hypothesis that Europe and the economy are the two most important issues differentiating the vote for Syriza and for all other parties. Negative attitudes towards the EU strengthened the vote for Tsipras’s party, while positive attitudes tended to enhance the vote for the centre-right ND. The same holds true for the agreement that ended the stand-off between Athens and Skopje over the name of Greece’s northern neighbour. Negative attitudes towards the Prespa Agreement almost certainly drove some citizens into the arms of ND.

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter was to examine how, and to what extent, the issue of Europe determined vote choice in Greece in 2019. Historically, Greek public opinion has been generally supportive of both European integration and Greece’s membership in the EU. However, the political and financial implications of the economic crisis after 2008 “aroused” the sleeping giant and, gradually, after a sequence of events created by the introduction of harsh austerity measures, the public eventually turned against Europe and its leaders, with the issue of Europe becoming bound to the issue of austerity, thereby creating a super issue that divided both society and the political parties into two camps: those that supported the memorandums and those that opposed them. From this perspective, policy positions were attached to strong feelings of animosity, with evidence suggesting the emergence of affective polarization.

This chapter also contributes to the systematic understanding of polarization on the EU issue in parliament and the media. The trend is clear, closer to the referendum the debate around the EU issue that generated high levels of polarization. This comes as no surprise to the analysts who followed developments in southern Europe during the economic crisis. By analysing two widely read newspapers, one representing centre-left opinion and the other centre-right, we see the salience of the EU issue is greater during the crisis, and that negative articles frequently appeared in even moderate newspapers.

This chapter also adds new insights into the determinants of party choice for the 2019 elections. Has Alexis Tsipras’s party been punished for its ambivalence towards the EU and for signing the bailout agreement? Or does the average voter perceive the agreement with the Republic of North Macedonia as a threat? In 2019, Syriza successfully closed the circle of the memoranda that was opened by the Papandreou government in 2009 and which could only have provided major benefits for Tsipras and Syriza. However, there was also a considerable potential downside—with it seeming the average Greek voter believed Tsipras was responsible for Greece’s economic plight. In addition to the economic situation, at the same time ND mobilized citizens and public emotions by calling on people to “rally around the flag” in support of its leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. As the analysis suggests this strategy was ultimately successful.

Appendix

See Table 9.1.

Table 9.1 Regression table