The Eurozone crisis’ impact: a de-Europeanization of Greek and Portuguese foreign policies?

Relying on the de-Europeanization concept, this article compares the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the foreign policies of Greece and Portugal. In particular, it examines how the impact of the Eurozone crisis has strengthened the influence of external actors like China, as well as the latter´s role as a potential driver of de-Europeanization. It argues that Greece took initiatives that to a certain extent went against agreed EU consensus on several issues: in particular, its links with China developed greatly with the COSCO Piraeus investment as its flagship, a decision involving Conservative, Socialist and SYRIZA-ANEL governments (i.e. irrespective of ideological differences). Also, the Greek government blocked the Annual EU statement to the UN on China’s human rights record in 2017. The same applies to Athens joining the China-Central and Eastern European “16+1” initiative. Portugal seems to have been less permeable to Chinese political influence than Greece. For instance: while not being opposed to granting market economy status to China, contrary to Beijing’s expectations, Lisbon did not lobby in favour of the Chinese bid in the run-up to the 2016 EU decision on that issue. Rather than joining Beijing’s initiative (like Greece and some Eastern European countries), Lisbon signed in 2018 a ‘memorandum of understanding’ on the Belt and Road Initiative presented by Lisbon as coherent with EU principles and goals. In contrast to Greece, Portugal did not block any EU declaration on human rights in China, even if Lisbon persisted with its traditional stance of avoiding confronting Beijing on political issues in bilateral dealings. Overall, in the case of Greece de – Europeanization during the economic crisis has had a lot to do with domestic politics. On the contrary, Portugal links with China appear to represent more a need to adapt to exceptional circumstances, rather than any pervasive challenge to EU norms.