‘The Germans are back’: Euroscepticism and anti-Germanism in crisis-stricken Greece^†

† This is the direct English translation of the tile of a classic 1948 Greek movie (‘Οι Γερμανοί ξανάρχονται’) with a powerful anti-war message. Shot during a most turbulent time for Greece (the civil-war years that followed the end of the WWII-Nazi occupation of the country), the movie features Theodoros, a quiet, kind man, who one day witnesses a terrifying civil-war conflict while out shopping and upon his return home, he falls asleep and dreams that Hitler is alive and the Nazis are back in Greece with more powerful weapons. The movie – a ‘satirical nightmare’ as its creators called it – won critical acclaim and is considered one of the best examples of Greek filmography. For the original film poster in English (on which the title is ‘The Nazis strike again’) and a selection of links with more information on the movie in English, see Βικιπαίδεια (2014).

ABSTRACT

The Eurocrisis has generated a deep and ongoing politicization of the EU within and across national public spheres, fuelling age-old and new political and social conflicts, which in turn shape public perceptions of crisis and the legitimacy of ‘crisis government’. Focusing on Greece, an EU member state at the epicentre of the crisis, this paper examines how the European polity was contested in the first five years (2009–2013) of the ‘Eurocrisis’. During this period, anti-German stereotypes resurfaced in the Greek public sphere in parallel with increasingly mainstream Euroscepticism. Nevertheless, analysis of news and social media content from this period shows that beneath this new-found scepticism towards the EU and Germany's role in it lie two much broader narratives: that of the power struggle between the people and the political elites; and that of an epic clash between diametrically different political ideologies.

KEYWORDS:

• Crisis
• Euroscepticism
• Germany
• Greece
• public sphere
• stereotypes

Acknowledgements

The research presented in this article was completed as part of the EUROTRANS and EURODIV projects, which are run by the ARENA Centre for European Studies in Oslo and funded by the Research Council of Norway. I wish to thank the special issue editors, Aline Sierp and Christian Karner, for their constructive feedback and support during the publication process. I also thankful to the three anonymous reviewers who provided detailed and constructive reviews of my article, as well as to my colleagues at ARENA, Prof. Helene Sjursen and Dr Mai'a Davis Cross for their inspirational comments that helped focus my analysis. Many thanks also go to Elina Roinioti, PhD candidate at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, for her thorough coding of the Greek news data set.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Asimina Michailidou is a political communications scholar, whose research focuses on the EU's public communication strategies; online media, mobilization and crises; online journalism and European elections; and Euroscepticism in the media sphere. Among her main publications are: ‘The Internet and European Integration’ (Barbara Budrich, 2014); Contesting Europe (ECPR Press, 2013), both co-authored with Pieter de Wilde and Hans-Jörg Trenz; The European Union online (2012, Akademiker). Her work also appears in the Journal of European Public Policy, Journalism Practice, European Journal of Communication Research and the Journal of Contemporary European Research.

Notes

† This is the direct English translation of the tile of a classic 1948 Greek movie (‘Οι Γερμανοί ξανάρχονται’) with a powerful anti-war message. Shot during a most turbulent time for Greece (the civil-war years that followed the end of the WWII-Nazi occupation of the country), the movie features Theodoros, a quiet, kind man, who one day witnesses a terrifying civil-war conflict while out shopping and upon his return home, he falls asleep and dreams that Hitler is alive and the Nazis are back in Greece with more powerful weapons. The movie – a ‘satirical nightmare’ as its creators called it – won critical acclaim and is considered one of the best examples of Greek filmography. For the original film poster in English (on which the title is ‘The Nazis strike again’) and a selection of links with more information on the movie in English, see Βικιπαίδεια (2014).

1 Statham and Trenz (2014) identify this gap in research and propose an EU politicization research agenda that is based on contestation mechanisms in the public sphere.

2 I use the term ‘moral panic’ here as a blanket concept that defines ‘[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons [which] emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests’ (Cohen, 1973, p. 9) and which is characterized by disproportionality (i.e. the perceived threat is disproportional to the real threat), whereby the perceived threat takes the shape of ‘folk devils’ (Thompson, 2006).

3 That a crisis is almost always unanticipated does not mean that there are no warning signs before its outbreak. It is more the case that key stakeholders fail to notice or act upon those signs, as has been the case with the Eurocrisis.

4 Learning from a crisis is also a key aim of crisis-management but usually comes secondary. This is despite the fact that it pays off in the long term for an organization or system as a whole to give this at aspect as much attention, because it constitutes a solid way to safeguard a system from future similar crises (Boin et al., 2005).

5 The quality of Greek democracy has been critically assessed and found lacking by several scholars. See, indicatively, Diamandouros and Gunther (2001).

6 One in five Greeks are at risk of poverty according to the recent data released by Eurostat, but a careful reading of the report reveals that ‘at risk of poverty’ is a person in a household whose disposable income is already below the ‘at risk of poverty’ line (Eurostat, 2013).

7 Campaigning for the Greek War Reparations case has been ongoing for decades, but the Eurocrisis has focused the media's attention on it and made it part of parties’ political agenda. For an overview of the Greek reparations case, including the confidential report produced for the Greek government see Lowen (2013). For an insight into some of the legal arguments produced by the German side in the case of the Distomo Nazi massacre in particular see Rau (2005).

8 The issue of trust/distrust of citizens towards EU institutions and how this links to Euroscepticism, has been the subject of extensive scholarly research. Indicatively, see Hooghe and Marks (2007), Hudson (2006), Harteveld, van der Meer, and de Vries (2013).

9 The ERT was closed down in an attempt to meet the target of dismissing 4000 public sector employees by the end of 2013, as part of the conditions of the Second Economic Adjustment Programme (bailout). The ERT was eventually reinstated in early 2015, by the SYRIZA-ANEL government, which has vouched to safeguard the independence of the public broadcaster. Thus far, news production has maintained the co-operative, interactive, employee-led style of news making that the ERT journalist teams established successfully in the ‘closure period’ of the public broadcaster. Citizens will also have a direct say in the evaluation of the ERT, through the recently announced Social Control Councils (SCCs). Any citizen or civil society organization can apply to become a member of their regional SCC, whose role is to communicate to the Board of Directors their views on the content of the ERT's programme, to make recommendations for the proper functioning of the ERT and to monitor the compliance of the ERT's operations with the obligations envisaged in its founding manifesto.

10 Metapolitefsi is the period that started with the restoration of democracy in 1974 and ended with the collapse of the PASOK-ND bi-partisan political establishment during the Eurocrisis years. Although this collapse has been gradual since 2009, the definitive moment that sealed the end of the Metapolitefsi was 25th January 2015, when SYRIZA won the national elections and formed the first-ever left wing government in Greece (albeit in coalition with the smaller, right-wing populist party Independent Greeks-ANEL).

11 One example is the case of Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, who published the infamous ‘Lagarde list’ of potential Greek tax evaders against the intentions of the Greek government, who were apparently trying to ‘bury’ the case and prevent investigations. Such has been the notoriety and impact of the Lagarde list scandal on international public discourse that the Financial Times now include it in their influential Lexicon of ‘economic, financial and business terms’ (Financial Times Lexicon, 2014).

12 Political cartoon by Dimitris Hantzopoulos (2012) depicting former Prime Minister of Greece Antonis Samaras on the roof of the Greek Parliament in a Messiah pose.

13 All quantitative coding was carried out with DiscoverText, while for the qualitative analysis we followed a combined discourse and concept mapping approach. The concept-mapping component was carried out using Leximancer. For more details on the sampling strategy, quantitative and qualitative coding, as well as validity and reliability scores, see Michailidou et al. (2014).

14 The more common terms used to define the two opposing opinion camps are pro- and anti-Memorandum, after the Memoranda of Understanding that accompany the loan agreements by the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank that the Greek government has signed.

15 For a concise history of Greece's civil war years and the atrocities committed by both warring sides see (Close, 2013; Hamilakis, 2002; Mazower, 2000; Voglis, 2002).