to power. The Cyprus question continued to
disrupt its relations with Turkey. But as a member
of the Community it had received aid and gained
substantial advantages.
On Papandreou’s death in 1996, Costas
Simitis, a younger founder of the socialist Pasok
Party became prime minister and took the party
into the elections of that year. The country had
become increasingly polarised with the revival of
the conservative New Democracy Party but Pasok
won a working majority of seats – 158 against
New Democracy’s 125. Greek politics, still linked
to the dynasties of a few families, however, came
to be dominated less by ideology and more by the
requirements of its membership of the European
Union. By taking Greece into the Monetary
Union, Greece had been forced to adopt prudent
budget policies. Austerity measures inevitably
proved unpopular. Simitis steered the politics of
his party to the centre, reforms to modernise and
make the economy more competitive were prag-
matic rather than ‘socialist’. He stated a modest
aim of cutting unemployment down to 7.3 per
cent. Unemployment at over 9 per cent remained
the blackspot. But with the help of European
Union funds, fiscal discipline and liberalisation,
Greece’s economic growth rate became one of
the best in Europe between 3 per cent and 4 per
cent annually from 1997 to 2003 while the high
inflation rate fell from 16 per cent to under 7 per
cent. With the stabilisation of the Balkans after
the Yugoslav wars, Greece, the most advanced
economy in the region, will benefit further. A new
feature in Greece has been large-scale immigra-
tion from its neighbours, happy to do more
medical work and proving a benefit to the
economy and less of an issue of public disquiet
than might have been supposed. Simitis aban-
doned Papandreou’s populist, nationalist anti-
American tone; the policy toward Turkey is more
pacific with Simitis and George Papandreou, the
highly regarded foreign minister supporting the
principle of Turkey’s admission to the European
Union. Greece was governed for nineteen out of
the last twenty-two years by Pasok and partners
on the left. It required a small shift of voters dis-
contented by austerity and high unemployment
to bring New Democracy back into power in
2004 as the eyes of the world were on Greece
hosting the Olympic Games. In March 2004 the
centre-right New Democracy party broke Pasok’s
hold on power, won the elections and Costas
Karamanlis became prime minister.
Spain joined the Community in 1986, a move
made possible by an astonishing decade of
change. In November 1975, the old dictator
Franco had finally died, wired up to many
machines in a vain attempt to prolong his life by
a few days. He had given Spain stability and,
shrewdly, had not thrown in his lot with his fascist
helper Mussolini or with Hitler during the
Second World War. It was to his credit too that
he had not marched into Gibraltar during
Britain’s great crisis in 1940. That Spanish vol-
unteers had fought on the Russian front with
Hitler was not held against him in the 1950s. He
survived the early years of international ostracism
and, with the onset of the Cold War, he began
to be rehabilitated by the US in 1950. Three
years later in September 1953 the US gave aid in
return for three bases and a mutual defence pact;
international forgiveness was extended when
Spain in December 1955 became a full member
of the United Nations. (Spain was not admitted
into NATO until 1982.)
Franco’s Spain remained a repressive regime in
the 1950s, but during the 1960s reforms were
gradually introduced, military courts were abol-
ished and workers were granted a carefully limited
right to strike. Constitutional changes effected in
1966 provided for the election of a minority of
members of parliament, though political parties
were banned. Franco enjoyed widespread popular
support and was seen as standing above the
Falange, the Church and the army, which were
locked in bitter conflict. The most serious threat
to his rule came from ETA, the independence
movement of Basque nationalism. As his succes-
sor, Franco had groomed Prince Juan Carlos,
grandson of Alfonso XIII; Franco judged that a
return to a ruling monarch would be the best
guarantee for preserving conservative peace in
Spain. Juan Carlos gave no sign during Franco’s
lifetime of the liberal and democratic role he
would crucially play after the caudillo’s death.
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