How “democratic” Europe embraced the Greek Junta

The narrative that has prevailed in the Post-colonialism wants the seven years and the United Europe – the old EEC and the current EU – two incompatible concepts. The archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, show a different picture of the relations between the “Phoenix” and the Europeans.

The Council of Europe may have kicked Greece out in 1969, but the Europeans – within the EEC – maintained excellent relations with the regime.

As former Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg has noted, “there was little discussion of the external factor: the failure of the international community to use its influence to stop the junta. In retrospect, the position of the Council of Europe Commission is a proud exception.”

Indeed, according to the investigation of the journalist Vangelis Georgiou, “Greece EEC: Confidential” (cm. Quality), the Papadopoulos regime did not say no to the EEC, quite the opposite. Politicians and diplomats were in favor of joining.

In March 1972, a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the German ambassador to “push” the Greek case in the political consultations of the EEC.

Specifically, the Huntics wanted to know the content of the consultations between the members of the EEC “on the one hand, because this may possibly assist it in defining its position, on a specific issue in a way that is harmonized with the position of the EEC states, and on the other hand, , because when Greece becomes a full member of the Community, it will know in detail the positions and perceptions of the Community states”.

“A way should be found not to exclude countries like the [χουντική] Hellas”

Of course, the case once again got stuck in a “detail”: there was no parliament in Greece.

A Greek diplomat had the answer ready: “If today there is no Parliament, there will be in the future!”

Of course, leaving the Council of Europe would not affect Greece’s relations with either NATO or the EEC.

Georges Pompidou’s France got along great with Papadopoulos. A high-ranking official of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured in April 1972 that the Greek-French relations “are such that, regardless of the given continuity in the matter of Greece’s official connection to the consultations, it is possible to inform Greece (under the as above regarding confidentiality restrictions) under France on a bilateral basis organized in a more systematic manner!

In the Council of Europe, France was at the forefront of defending the Junta. We are talking about the time when the greatest Europeanists sat in the French cabinet, such as the later president of the Commission François-Xavier Ortoli and the well-known Valéry Giscard D’Estaing who maintained contacts with the worst African dictators anyway.

The French Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean de Lipofsky, understood that “France and Greece have different conceptions of Democracy. But this is of no importance, because each state is free to have any preference as to the form of its government. The French government has adopted the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries”.

This is what the pro-communist French government said, and that is why the junta’s deputy foreign minister Christos Xanthopoulos-Palamas hosted a reception in honor of France’s deputy foreign minister Jean de Lipofsky in January 1972.

Of course, Lipofsky wanted to sell French products and services.

And the Italians also showed an “emotional” attitude towards the Houthis. In the opinion of the General Director of Political Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “a way should be found not to exclude NATO member countries that are not members of the EEC, such as Greece and Turkey, from the updates on the political consultations”.

Further north, in Belgium, the politician Pierre Harmel was very reassuring to the colonels. In 1972, he would assure the first-class member of the Junta, Emmanuel Fthenakis, “that it would be unreasonable for the EEC to demand from the Mediterranean countries to follow its own form of parliamentarism without this meaning that everyone’s ultimate goal should be democratic governance”.

For Harmel, what was needed in the case of the Greek regime was “mutual patience and trust”.

Thus, the Junta’s “We remain European” were not opposed to the country’s European course. For Konstantinos Karamanlis, in fact, if the Houthis set a time limit for the “revolution” – as he described it – then the Houthis “would at least have the satisfaction that with the coup they offered the country the opportunity to modernize its institutions” in view of the integration into the “good” Europe.