Geographic, Cultural and Social Overview

Greece is also known as the Hellenic Republic. Its Greek name is Elliniki Dimokratia.
Its area amounts to 131.940 square kilometres. Twenty percent of them are Islands. Greece has more than 2.000 islands. Crete (Kriti) is the greatest one. Most of these islands are scattered in the eastern Mediterranean, especially in the Aegean Sea and Ionian Sea. Countries that share a land border with the Hellenic Republic are Albania, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Turkey.
Greece is a stable parliamentary republic. Its president is Konstantinos Stefanopoulos since 1995. He was elected by the parliament ”Vouli ton Ellinon” for a second period in 2000. The new prime minister of Greece is Kostas Karamanlis. His party ”New Democracy” won the elections in March 2004.
Greece has a population of 10.7 million. There are no notable ethnical conflicts. 98 percent of the population are Greeks. The remaining two percent are small minorities like Albanians, Turks, Bulgarians and Roma. Modern Greek is the most spoken and official language in Greece. Also more than 4.5 million Greeks live abroad. The Greek Diaspora means all abroad living Greeks and is very important for Greece’s foreign policy, because of an enormous influence in concerning countries. Most of them live in North America, especially in the United States.
65.7 percent of the Citizens live in cities. Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. It was founded in the ancient and became one of the most famous cities at this time. Today nearly forty percent of Greece’s inhabitants live in Athens. It is also the most important economic, commercial and cultural centre of Greece. In 2004, the Olympic Summer Games will take place in Athens.
The dominating religion in Greece is the Greek-Orthodox Church, which is independent since 1833. More than 95 percent of the Greeks are Greek-Orthodox.

The experience of democracy made in Greece 2500 years ago was threatened in the 20th century

The 20th century in Greece was characterized by instability, occupation, and dictatorship. When the country became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, Greece was put under British, French, and Russian protection. The influence the Great Powers and especially Britain had on Greece caused the fact that the country’s history was affected by the interests of external forces. From World War I up to the re-establishment of democracy in 1974, Greece experienced anti-democratic developments, frequent changes in power and an unstable political, social, and economic environment. From 1941 to 1944, the German army occupied Greece. Afterwards, a Civil War between communists and republicans left Greece economically, socially, and politically destroyed and heavily dependent on the USA’s European Recovery Program. In 1967, a military junta took over control in order to avoid a center-left union to win the forthcoming elections. Seven years of dictatorial rule followed. When in 1974 the junta supported a coup against the Cypriot president Makários, which tried to overthrow him and reunite Cyprus with Greece, the Turkish government implemented an invasion referring to its rights with the London and Zurich Treaty of 1960 declaring the country a guarantor of the security of the island. As a result, the junta was overthrown and democracy came back to the land of its birth. Monarchy was abolished and a new constitution was adopted. In 1981, Greece was granted full member status in the European Community.
Today, Greece is a Parliamentary Democracy with a President as Head of State, the current being Kostis Stefanopoulos. Citizens have the obligation to vote and thereby determine the members of the Vouli ton Ellinon, the Greek parliament. There are two main parties, which are the Pan Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy, ND). PASOK is a socialist party understanding itself to be patriotic and democratic. In 2004, its leader Costas Simitis gave the power to Georgios Papandreou, the grandson of PASOK founder Andreas Papandreou. Nea Dimokratia is a conservative to center-right party with neo-liberal elements. Costas Karamanlis, the nephew of the founder of the party, is the leader of ND. The elections of 7 March 2004 resulted in a change in political power: ND gaining 45,4% of the votes is taking over the government from PASOK (40,6%). Hence, Costas Karamanlis is the new prime minister. The Communist party of Greece (KKE) gained 5,9%; the Coalition of the Left and the Progress (Synaspimos) gained 3,2%. The new government may not lose any time, as urgent problems need to be solved: The Olympic Games will be held in Athens in August and many construction projects are not finished yet. Furthermore, there are security concerns: analysts consider Athens the most threatened Olympic City ever! Fortunately, 17 members of the N17 terrorist organization (which was founded in the course of the famous anti-junta revolt on November 17, 1973) could be arrested in 2003. Finally, structural reforms will be a topic of utmost importance for the new government. Economic and social reforms, especially concerning the welfare and health system have to be implemented and unemployment needs to be reduced: The situation is similar to the German one.