Greek parliamentarians and Greek foreign policy (2004-2014)

The Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy was announced in the 1990s as a ‘success story’. However, it has led to a vivid debate over whether this has really occurred or if it only amounted to ‘superficial Europeanisation’. More recent research, that also takes into consideration the impact of the current financial and economic crises, tends to confirm the latter approach. However, there is very little research on ‘deep Europeanisation’, for instance on its ‘crossloading’ dimension. This is particularly so over the international role of Greek parliamentarians. It also represents a gap in the growing academic study of ‘parliamentary diplomacy’, and that on International Parliamentary Institutions, including on the European Parliament. This paper is a pilot study that presents preliminary findings from the Hellenic Parliament (in Greek, the Vouli ton Ellenon, in short the Vouli), from Greek members of the European Parliament (MEPs), and from a parliamentary network, the World Hellenic Inter-Parliamentary Association. Its objective is to call for the need for more research on this subject.