The Good, the Bad and the Transcendent. "Greece" As a Narrative in Defining the Eurozone Crisis

Since 2009 the troubles in Greece have often doubled as the face of the EU-Eurozone financial crisis. In the narrative that has predominated in international news coverage and analysis, the Greek public debt situation is diagnosed as arising mainly from endogenous causes: retarded economic development, aging demographics, public profligacy, clientelism. The consequences of the "Greek crisis," however, have been treated as a potential disaster for Europe and the global financial system as a whole. By the time of the dramatic summer of 2015, a competing international narrative saw the Greek people and their leftist government as victims of a punitive austerity policy dictated by a neoliberal and authoritarian EU. This paper contextualizes the Greek dilemma within the history of a nation-state that was literally born into sovereign default and that defaulted on five occasions prior to 2010; and also within the history of Western, EU and Eurozone integration processes. It is argued that the prevailing models of Greece and its debt constitute discursive realities that influence the course of events. Two examples illustrating highly divergent images are detailed: First, in 2010, economist Carmen Reinhart used Greece as the key exhibit in her presentation to the US National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility. Second, in the spring of 2015, the president of the Hellenic Parliament, Zoe Konstantopoulou, convened a Truth Committee on Public Debt that has claimed the entire Greek debt is illegitimate. Both of these performances were designed to advise state policy and influence public opinion in the broadest way; both drew unusual attention for such proceedings.