Robert Ladrech, Professor of European Politics at Keel University, in his recent policy brief for the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), titled “Greece and Europe: Analyzing the current and political landscape“, talks about the interlinked economic and political challenges Greece and the EU face today. Ladrech takes Greece as a departure point, since “the Greek situation, in many respects, resembles an extreme version of trends rippling across the older member states of the European Union”.
He further points out that the Greek crisis is bound up with other crises facing the EU, such as the current refugee crisis, the Ukraine situation, the promotion of ‘illiberal democracy’ in Hungary, the UK referendum on exiting the EU, and of course the euro crisis.

Considering that the EU economic policies have a profound impact on national economies and even on national parliamentary democracy, he proposes deepening EU integration with mechanisms that link the national with the European -like an Eurozone parliament- and also with transnational linkages animated by political solidarity. According to Ladrech, if we don’t face up to this challenge, neo-liberal economic tenets will continue to be constitutionalised in national policy, even where they are resisted.
TAGS: CRISIS | FOREIGN AFFAIRS | MIGRATION