EUPopLink Country report - Greece

This report examines the overlap of Populism and Euroscepticism at the party level in Greece from the 1980s to today. It provides a longitudinal description of populist parties and their political platforms. While early populism was primarily represented by PASOK, it later became a more widespread feature of the political system, with the emergence and electoral success of populist parties across the political spectrum, including ANEL, SYRIZA, and Golden Dawn, among others, whose political rise was greatly facilitated by the Economic Crisis of the early 2010s, and the political disaffection it gave rise to. Similarly, Euroscepticism began as a left-wing critique of European Integration, focusing on its neoliberal economic policy, but became more popular during the debt crisis years and its immediate aftermath. The Greek case demonstrates the overlap of the two concepts in party politics, with most populist parties being also Eurosceptic, and vice versa. Moreover, the overlap is not deterministic, with prevalent cases going against this pattern of co-occurrence. Although populist mobilization has waned in recent years, many parties, especially new, smaller parties, continue to take up populist and Eurosceptic positions that combine anti-immigration sentiment with nationalist rhetoric and criticism of EU policies.