“From Athens to Athens”. Europe, Crisis, and Democracy: Suggestions for a Debate

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Abstract

On 31st October 2011, the then Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announced his intention to hold a referendum on whether the country should accept the financial rescue plan laid out by the troika of the European Union (EU), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB), providing for a 50 % haircut of Greece’s debt owed to private creditors. Four days later, Papandreou backed down from his decision, and on the 10th November he tendered his resignation office. Papandreou was replaced by Lucas Papademos, who had previously served as Governor of the Bank of Greece and as Vice-President of the ECB. In the same, eventful week, the Prime Minister of another debt-laden European country, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, stepped down from office, amidst growing continent-wide concern over the sustainability of the Italian public debt. Following Berlusconi’s resignation, President Giorgio Napolitano gave mandate to Mario Monti, an Economics professor at Milan’s Bocconi University and former EU commissioner, to form a new “technocrat” cabinet.

Keywords

European Union European Central Bank European Parliament Soft Power Democratic Constitution 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.The University of QueenslandSt. LuciaAustralia

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