West European Politics, Vol. 28, No.

2, 335 357, March 2005

Deepening Democracy or Defending the Nation? The Europeanisation of Minority Rights and Greek Citizenship
DIA ANAGNOSTOU
ABSTRACT This article examines the emergence of European norms and institutions of human rights and their impact on domestic policies and practices pertaining to citizenship and minorities in Greece. Since the beginning of the 1990s, with an intensication of Europeanisation processes in Greece, government policy towards minorities has undergone a process of liberalisation that culminated with the abrogation of Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code (GCC) in 1998, on which this article focuses. It presents an empirical analysis of the process that led to the abrogation of Article 19 of the GCC and it is primarily interested in the role European institutions played in it. Was its elimination a product of the reconguration of traditional Greek conceptions of citizenship and minorities, or was it an instance of instrumental change taking place within the given frame of national interests and identities?

Over the past 15 years, the determination of domestic elites across the major political parties to bring Greece into the mainstream of the EU after ten years of ambivalence and marginality has marked the intensication of the Europeanisation process in the country. Specialists on Greece have explored the latter, encompassing a reordering of policy priorities, as well as far-reaching restructuring of political-economic institutions and statesociety relations, notwithstanding its specicity as a peripheral state historically and geographically situated in Southeast Europe (Featherstone 1998; Ioakimidis 1995). Drawing from a burgeoning literature on Europeanisation, these studies reect a shift in academic interest from supranational institution building to the eects of European structures of governance and normative frames in reconguring domestic politics and institutions (Ladrech 1994; Featherstone and Kazamias 2000; Radaelli 2000). Depending on the degree of t between national and European institutional make-up, integration exerts adaptational pressures,
Correspondence Address: Scientic Advisor to the Greek Ombudsman. Email address: diaman69@otenet.gr ISSN 0140-2382 Print/1743-9655 Online # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd DOI: 10.1080/01402380500059785

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a multifaceted and far from uniform process whereby EU norms and policies are transposed in variable ways and degrees in distinct national settings (Risse et al. 2001). However, studies have paid relatively little attention to the eects of Europeanisation on how states deal with minorities and allocate citizenship, which often touches upon politically delicate and emotionally charged issues of national membership and identity. In the post-World War II period, European institutions such as the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Conference (now Organisation) for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE/OSCE) engaged in far-reaching elaboration of human rights principles. Since the end of the Cold War their activities have extended their standard-setting and normative purview to the protection of minorities. An interweaving set of provisions and a comprehensive regime of norms and rules have emerged, enjoining obligations for member states to respect and protect the rights of minorities (Jackson Preece 1998). Concern with the rise of minority issues in post-communist Central-East and Southeast Europe was among the factors that led the CoE in 1997 to adopt the European Convention on Nationality, seeking to regulate the acquisition of citizenship and to prevent statelessness and the arbitrary withdrawal of it. Intent upon safeguarding individual rights and preventing discriminative practices regardless of ethnic-religious origin, European norms and institutions arguably challenge traditional notions of citizenship premised upon cultural belonging to the national community and promote a more inclusive conception of national membership (Soysal 1994). The proliferation of such norms presents a mist for member states (Risse et al. 2001) where the history and development of state institutions and laws has systematically privileged the interests of national unity often at the expense of individual rights and minorities. Greece is such a case in point (Pollis 1992). Historical reasons related to the slow process of unication of dierent areas and a sharp sense of insecurity forged an exclusive conception of the Greek nation that continued to shape formally and substantively the allocation of citizenship rights beyond the transition to democracy in 1974. National laws and practices allocating citizenship rights to minorities reect deeply ingrained cultural-historical traditions and conceptions of nationhood that have a lasting and formative quality (Brubaker 1992). In a society divided by the legacy of the civil war of the 1940s and the polarised international climate of the Cold War, post-war Greek governments sought to disenfranchise minorities, viewing them as a danger to national unity and territorial integrity that had to be assimilated or defended against. Scholars primarily from the eld of international relations and European studies depict very dierently the specic ways and dynamics whereby the Europeanisation of human rights bears upon domestic institutions, practices and collective understandings. On the one hand, scholars argue that European human rights and minority protection norms inuence national institutions and practices in so far as they are actively supported by domestic

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societal groups that pressurise their governments to comply with these (Joppke 1998). Alternatively, such norms and principles elicit compliance when there is a shifting balance towards domestic elite groups that instrumentally appeal to such norms as a means of furthering particular interests and strategic ends (Moravscik 1995). On the other hand, other scholars argue that European principles of human rights and minority protection can have a deeper eect. They induce through learning normative and/or societal change among elites, who develop and internalise new understandings about citizenship and national membership (Checkel 2001a: 182; Risse 1999; Risse et al. 2001: 12). The implications of the perspective that sees the impact of European norms to be primarily thin and instrumental and the other one that sees it as thick and normative are very dierent (Checkel 2001b). In contrast to the former, the latter sees Europeanisation as capable of gradually redening historically formed collective understandings of nation and citizenship. This article examines the emergence of European norms and institutions of human rights and their impact on domestic policies and practices pertaining to citizenship and minorities in Greece. From the 1980s, Greece witnessed the mobilisation of numerically small but signicant historical minorities, such as Turkish Muslims and Slavic-speakers of northern Greece, whose assertion of rights and cultural identity became a compelling political issue with the collapse of communism and the disintegration of Yugoslavia (Clogg 2002: xixii). With the intensication of Europeanisation processes in Greece at the beginning of the 1990s, government policy towards minorities underwent signicant changes. Despite the rising tide of Greek nationalist sentiment, the early 1990s also marked a turning point in Greek government policy towards the countrys most important minority, the Turkish-speaking Muslims of Thrace, characterised by a process of liberalisation of their rights. The latter culminated with the abrogation of Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code in 1998, on which this article focuses. Article 19 of the Citizenship Code and Minorities in Greece Article 19 of the Greek Citizenship Code (GCC) stipulated that individuals who were not ethnically Greek (allogeneis), who left the country without the intention of returning, could be deprived of their citizenship. Having its origins in a 1927 presidential decree, this provision was incorporated as Article 19 in the GCC that was adopted with Law 3370/1955 (PapasiopiPasia 2002: 158). Article 19 provided a means to sever the links between the Greek state and those who did not assimilate (Stavros 1996: 120). Of central importance for the application of this provision was the concept of nonethnic Greek (allogenis) that has received two diverse interpretations in the domestic legal and administrative system. One attributes it to individuals born of non-ethnic Greek parents, while the other takes it to apply to those

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who lack Greek national consciousness through not having been assimilated into the Greek nation (Stavros 1996: 119). While a combination of the two aspects was used to draw the line between Greeks and non-Greeks (Papasiopi-Pasia 2002: 3738), the development of Greek citizenship has primarily taken place along jus sanguinis lines, with the criterion of national consciousness acquisition playing a subsidiary role (Christopoulos 2004). The application of Article 19 targeted the countrys historical minorities (Slavic speakers, Jews, Albanian Muslims), who were viewed as having loose ties with the Greek state and as potentially threatening the unity of the latter. While targeting communists during the Civil War years, the removal of Greek nationality on the basis of this provision was overwhelmingly ` employed from the 1960s onwards vis-a-vis the Turkish-speaking Muslims in the northeast region of Western Thrace, a small community whose political salience far surpasses its small size.1 Originally comprising Muslims of Turkish origin, Gypsies (Roma) and Pomaks whose original mother tongue is Slavic, who prior to World War II largely coexisted as a religious community characteristic of the Ottoman millet system, they subsequently developed a common ethnic Turkish consciousness. Thraces designated Muslim minority was exempt, with the Greeks of Istanbul, from the mandatory population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1922, in line with the international Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Its section on the Protection of Minorities was a bilateral treaty between Greece and Turkey designated as the guaranteeing powers of the minority rights stipulated in the treaty (Ladas 1932). On the basis of an explicit condition of reciprocity (amiveotita), it dened Greece and Turkey as custodians that could monitor and intervene in the aairs of their kindred minority across the border. In this way, it established a basis for subsuming the minority under Greek Turkish relations, which deteriorated over the repression of the Greek minority in Istanbul in the 1950s and the Cyprus conict in the 1960s (Rozakis 1996: 105). The deprivation of citizenship on the basis of Article 19 was part and parcel of a broader set of informal but widespread restrictive measures (katastaltika metra) instituted by Greek governments appealing to the need to balance out the demographic decline of the Greek population in Istanbul. From the 1960s onwards, the Ministry of Foreign Aairs and its local, euphemistically named Oce of Cultural Aairs (Grafeio Ekpolitistikon Ypotheseon) monitored and circumscribed all economic transactions involving Muslims. Unocial but elaborate practices and networks of employees and interest groups linked to state administration, as well as to banks and enterprises, systematically prevented most Muslims from acquiring property or even routine matters such as receiving bank loans or driving licences, and nding employment (Giannopoulos and Psaras 1990: 18).

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The informal status of second-class citizenship with a restricted set of rights, implicitly assigned to the minority of Thrace, found its formal expression in Article 19 which gave Greek authorities wide discretion to deprive minorities of their Greek citizenship. Out of the 60,000 individuals estimated to have lost their citizenship between 1955 and 1998, about 50,000 were Muslims from Thrace (Kostopoulos 2003: 5960). In attributing intention of not returning to Greece, state authorities had a virtually unlimited freedom to deduce it in each case. They often did so in an arbitrary manner without sucient justication and without consulting the interested individuals or families, who would often nd out that they were no longer Greek citizens upon their re-entry to Greece. The Ministry of Public Order would submit les of individuals deemed to fall within the remit of Article 19 to the Ministry of the Interior and, following the consenting opinion of the Council of Nationality, a ministerial order removing their citizenship would be issued. With the transition to democracy in 1974, the Greek authorities restored citizenship to over 1,000 individuals who had been deprived of it during the dictatorship years. However, the application of Article 19 continued unabated; indeed, it peaked after 1974 in the aftermath of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus (Kostopoulos 2003: 65). The Council of Europes readmission of Greece in 1975 and the process of association with the EU did not bring any attention to the rights of the Turkish minority, which were further curtailed in contrast to the restoration of democratic rights to Greek citizens in general. Article 19 violated the principle of equality of all Greeks before the law established with the democratic Constitution adopted in 1974. It went against Article 4 (para. 3), stating that a Greek citizen may be deprived of his/her nationality only if s/he voluntarily acquires a new nationality or if s/he undertakes services abroad contrary to national interest. In order to reinforce its validity despite its conspicuous illegitimacy, a transitional provision contained in Article 111 of the Constitution kept it in force until its repeal by law. In the early 1990s, the politicisation of the minority and the eruption of inter-communal tensions in Thrace alarmed Greek political leaders and led to a gradual relaxation of the governments restrictive measures. In denouncing the latter, in the second half of the 1980s this minority rallied around a powerful demand for self-determination as a Turkish minority which found expression in an initiative that promoted independent minority candidates. It gained mass support in 198990, when an electoral alliance was formed under the leadership of the late Ahmet Sadik and succeeded in electing two deputies to the Greek Parliament. Having the backing of motherland Turkey, it provoked tremendous opposition from Greek authorities and the public, which viewed it as a agrant challenge to national unity and a prelude to demands for autonomy in the region. In January 1990, following Sadiks prosecution by the Greek courts for referring to the minority as Turkish during his electoral campaign, escalating inter-

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communal tensions erupted into protests and incidents of vandalism in Komotini (Giannopoulos and Psaras 1990). In a text subsequently produced by the political leaders of the three largest parties, who urgently met behind closed doors to cope with the crisis, they recognised the need to abolish the restrictive measures (Giannopoulos and Psaras 1990: 21). A year later, in May 1991, Prime Minister Constantinos Mitsotakis visited Thrace and declared an end to discrimination and a new approach towards the minority based on legal equality equal citizenship (isonomia-isopoliteia) (Tsouderou 1995: 4748). The relaxation of the restrictive measures and the proclamation of legal equality equal citizenship set in motion a process of liberalisation of the governments policy towards the minority of Thrace, which, however, did not extend to Article 19. As part of the legal frame regulating Greek citizenship, it fell within the hard core of state sovereignty, which, despite the countrys democratisation after 1974, continued to place an undisputed premium on the interests of national unity over the rights of individual citizens. Legislative changes restoring citizenship to individuals who had been deprived of it before 1974, a central demand of the Pan Hellenic Socialist Movement ( , PASOK) and the Communist parties, provided for its restitution only to groups, such as repatriated refugees of the civil war, who were ethnically Greek.2 Despite its undisguised lack of constitutionality, the tenacity of Article 19 must be understood as an intrinsic expression of a cultural idiom (Brubaker 1992: 16) ingrained in the laws and practices of the country. Having its historical referent in Greeces process of nation building in the ninetiethtwentieth centuries, it reected and reproduced a fundamental assumption: only ethnic Greeks are entitled to the rights dening membership in the Greek state and thus to citizenship. Article 19 ultimately retained in the hands of Greek authorities the capacity to compel the exit or prevent the entry of individual citizens belonging to minorities which were deemed suspect and threatening to the unity of the nation. Far from being an anachronistic vestige of the past, this provision was loaded with historicalcultural signicance, providing a means to sustain control of the gateway to the Greek national community and to preserve its cherished homogeneity. The advent of a Europeanised segment of PASOK to the leadership of the party and to national government under the leadership of Costas Simitis in 1996 coincided with growing European activism and elaboration of human rights principles in relation to minority protection and citizenship. Although it has yet to sign the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, Greece did sign the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCPNM) in 1998, with ratication still pending. Already from the late 1980s onwards, Greeces treatment of the Turkishspeaking Muslims of Thrace became a target of growing criticism in the CoE, with charges often brought at the initiative of Turkish delegates (Eleftherotypia 24.4.1991: 5). NGOs, minority leaders and organisations

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such as the Federation of the Turks of Thrace, established by those who had emigrated to Germany, systematically brought their grievances in front of European forums, particularly in Strasbourg (Hersant 2000: 3740). European institutions such as the CoE drafted reports about the situation of the Muslims of Thrace and expressed concern about Article 19. In June 1998, a bill concerned with electoral issues included a provision to abolish Article 19, and was voted through by the Greek Parliament with the support of all major parties (Law 2623/1998, Art. 9, para. 14). The gradual process of liberalisation of minority rights from the early 1990s onwards, of which the abrogation of Article 19 was a part, was possibly connected closely to the growing activism of European-level institutions around human rights and minority protection. The rest of this article presents an empirical analysis of the process that led to the abrogation of Article 19 of the GCC in 1998 and is primarily interested in the role European institutions played. Was Article 19s elimination a product of the reconguration of traditional Greek conceptions of citizenship and minorities, or was it an instance of instrumental change taking place within the given frame of national interests and identities? The rst part of the article describes the change in government policy towards the minority in Thrace in the early 1990s. The second half of the 1990s saw the issuing of critical reports and the proliferation of criticism with regard to how Greece treated its minorities, and particularly the ongoing validity of Article 19 of the GCC. In 1997, the possibility that the CoE would open a monitoring process against Greece was raised, and towards the end of the year the Greek Ministry of Foreign Aairs initiated a series of deliberations with the Ministry of the Interior regarding the controversial provision of the GCC. On the basis of a series of interviews with political leaders, experts and ocials from the Ministry of Foreign Aairs and the Ministry of the Interior, as well as newspaper articles, the second part of this article traces the process that led to the abrogation of Article 19 in June 1998. Finally, the third part discusses the nature and scope of the abrogation of Article 19 by examining the views expressed by political parties and the MPs in the discussions of the draft law that took place in the Greek parliament. In doing so, it seeks to identify the underlying logic on the basis of which a broad cross-party consensus to abolish Article 19 emerged. The Redenition of Government Policy Towards the Minority in the Early 1990s The radicalisation of Muslims in the late 1980s and the escalation of intercommunal tensions in the stormy protests in Komotini in January 1990 prompted Greek political leaders to reconsider state policy in a climate of urgency and alarm. It compelled them to realise that the policy of restricted rights hitherto had been detrimental in creating a fertile ground for the

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growth of Turkish nationalism in Thrace and turning the minority towards Turkey. The umbilical cord with the motherland had been invigorated in the 1980s and Turkey took the leading role in condemning the discriminatory treatment of the minority in front of the European forums. This thoroughly annoyed the Greek government and put it in an uncomfortable position at a time when it was seeking to build its image as an earnest member of the European Community after more than half a decade of ambivalence and damaged reputation. In a secret meeting two days after the events, the leaders of PASOK, New Democracy ( , ND) and the Communist Party of Greece ( , KKE) issued a statement the content of which, however, did not diverge much in its basic premises from the existing approach (text appended in Giannopoulos and Psaras 1990: 21). It continued to emphasise the need to curb the demographic growth of the minority through the settlement in the region of ethnic Greek refugees from the former Soviet republics on the Black Sea, in order to pre-empt the perceived danger of territorial secession. While it called for an end to restrictive administrative measures, it also called for systematically purchasing land and property from Muslims and encouraging their migration to towns and urban centres, which was seen as a means to promote their mobility, standard of living and modern outlook. At the same time, in the late 1980s a handful of experts at the Ministry of Foreign Aairs had been participating in the standard-setting activities of the CSCE (now OSCE) and the CoE. In explicitly extending individual principles of human rights to the protection of minorities as groups, the documents adopted in 1989 in Vienna and particularly in 1990 in Copenhagen were milestones and made a catalytic impression on these experts. The human dimension of security that they projected, namely that the protection of human rights and minorities within the frame of pluralist democracy was an indispensable safeguard for state security, was diametrically opposite to the fundamental premises guiding Greeces approach (Heraclides 1997: 215). Through their participation in working group activities, such as those that eventually led to the adoption of the Charter for Regional and Minority Languages by the CoE, Ministry of Foreign Aairs experts were thoroughly aware of the international climate and the new normative principles emerging with regard to minority protection. Facing these international criticisms of Greeces negative attitude towards minorities put them in an uncomfortable position. It was particularly awkward as they were simultaneously expected to speak on behalf of the rights of the Greek minority in Albania. This exposed them to charges of double standards, in so far as the Greek government maintained ` a defensive stance vis-a-vis minorities residing within the country (Heraclides interview, 10.1.2001). In formulating positions and drafting responses to reports, Ministry of Foreign Aairs experts were torn between two diverging imperatives: to

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represent the defensive Greek stance on minority issues on the one hand, and, on the other, to have a constructive input into the working activities of European organisations developing rising standards of minority protection. In trying to mediate between the two, they were forced to work out compromises that were acceptable to the government and political leaders of the country. The release of the 1990 US State Department report on Human Rights in Greece (published early 1991) was a turning point, both in provoking nationalist opposition but also in intensifying activity within the Ministry of Foreign Aairs for a solution to the problem of minorities. In containing references to a Slavo-Macedonian minority, together with various critical observations about how Greece treated its minorities, the report had a watershed impact. In rallying a profusely nationalist public opinion and media, it presaged their large-scale mobilisation less than a year later, when the neighbouring Yugoslav republic would seek international recognition of its independence as Macedonia. In strong reaction to the report, leaders across political parties declared it to be preposterous and unacceptable, an insolent provocation purportedly concealing a plan to destabilise Greece (Kostopoulos 2000: 331). At the same time, the resulting turmoil among the directors of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs departments and intensifying contacts with the political leadership presented an opportunity for the Ministry of Foreign Aairs experts to make a dynamic and eective intervention (Heraclides interview, 10.1.2001). Between February and May 1991, three meetings were held with the directors of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs (MFA) departments, diplomats, Foreign Minister Antonis Samaras and Deputy Foreign Minister Virginia Tsouderou, in which the experts presented their proposals. In conveying a compelling sense of inevitability, the circulated memorandums of the MFA experts urged for an immediate change in domestic policy towards minorities, and that of Thrace in particular. The main ground on which they built their case was that the hitherto defensive and negative approach towards minorities had brought excessive costs for Greece abroad, which would multiply as more elaborate and binding texts on minority protection were in preparation. They argued that a change was imperative in order to improve Greeces disreputable anti-minority image in Europe and to end its isolation. Ending discrimination and protecting the rights of minorities, the experts argued, would bolster the countrys democratic credibility abroad and ` thus its leverage vis-a-vis European organisations and other countries, especially Turkey, which would no longer have a reason to criticise Greece. The memorandums contained a comprehensive list of policy proposals pertaining not only to negative rights (ending discrimination and abrogating Article 19) but also positive measures such as the protection and promotion of minority cultural identity, respect for selfdenition, armative action measures and minority participation in local

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and national decision-making structures. They also proposed recognition of a Slavic-speaking linguistic minority. None of the positive measures were adopted. While recognising that Greek public opinion was neither mature enough nor ready to accept such changes due to the deeply ingrained and historically conditioned perception of minorities as a threat, the veteran expert Evangelos Kofos nonetheless urged the political leadership to proceed with these changes by seeking bi-partisan consensus.3 Initially, the proposal for policy change elicited strongly negative reactions, particularly on the part of the diplomats and departmental directors of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs who had direct contact with the Ministrys political leadership, and who saw it as a challenge to the countrys most vital national interests. However, they moderated their position when it became clear that Prime Minister Mitsotakis had resolved to proceed with far-reaching changes (Kofos interview, 13.1.2001). Mitsotakis had appointed as director of the Prime Ministers Oce Loukas Tsilas, a diplomat closely linked to the Ministry of Foreign Aairs experts and an ardent supporter of a change of policy towards the minority. The decision at the highest political level for such change also led Samaras and Tsouderou to modify their originally lukewarm response and agree to the necessity of redening state policy towards the minority. The new approach was revealed in May 1991 during Mitsotakis visit to Thrace, when he announced that the government would seek to rectify the mistakes and injustices committed by previous governments to the detriment of the minority. While keeping with the Lausanne Treatys designation of a Muslim minority, for the rst time Mitsotakis recognised that the latter consists of three sub-groups, ethnic Turks, Slavic-speaking Pomaks and Gypsies. The new policy, the Prime Minister declared, would be guided by the principles of legal equality equal citizenship in agreement with the norms of human rights protection enshrined in the CSCE, UN and CoE documents, but no less strictly within the frame of the Lausanne Treaty (Eleftherotypia 15.5.1991). The abolition of the restrictive administrative measures, however, did not extend to Article 19 of the GCC, even though the Prime Minister himself was in favour of its removal (Mitsotakis interview, 22.2.2001). In sum, the reorientation of Greek minority policy in the early 1990s had limited scope and was driven by domestic factors stemming from pressures to mitigate ethnic Turkish radicalisation and inter-communal tensions in Thrace. The decision to eliminate the restrictive measures against the minority was a much-needed political breakthrough amidst a climate of uncertainty and insecurity about how to resolve the crisis signalled by the events in Komotini. In the preceding decades, such measures had led state minority and inter-communal relations to an impasse. Domestic political conditions, however, limited the scope for rescinding the discriminatory

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measures, which did not extend to repealing Article 19, despite the fact that the Prime Minister himself was intent on removing it. Mitsotakis could not rely on his Foreign Minister Samaras or on his party for support in this regard. Samaras subscribed to a much more nationalist view, as his subsequent stance on the Macedonian issue would soon demonstrate, leading him to diverge from the more moderate and consensual approach of the Prime Minister. The latter, however, sought to avoid conict with his Foreign Minister as the ND government relied on the support of a slim parliamentary majority, even though, as would become apparent, such a conict could only be postponed but not prevented. In 1993, two deputies leaning towards Samaras withdrew their support from the ND government, thus bringing it down. The socialist government of Andreas Papandreou that came back to power after the 1993 elections was even less receptive to issues regarding minority rights. Entangled as it was in an intransigent maximalist stance over the Macedonian issue laid down as much by the previous government as by its own negative attitude towards any compromise solution, it pandered with fresh ardour to the nationalist sentiment that had engulfed the Greek public (Kofos 1999: 38082). In sum, the immediate impetus for the abolition of discriminatory ` measures vis-a-vis Thraces Muslims in the early 1990s came from the domestic context and was directly linked to the need to deal with the crisis in inter-communal relations. Acquaintance with emerging European norms of human rights and minority protection were limited to the experts of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs participating in international standard-setting activities that took place in a more private and less politicised setting, but did not extend to the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs or the government. Their input in urging the Greek government to redene its policy acted primarily as a catalyst at a moment when the latter was desperately seeking to attenuate and resolve inter-communal tensions. Diused nationalist sentiment among the society at large, expressed in the highest echelons of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs led by Foreign Minister Samaras, placed a rm constraint on the ensuing changes towards the minority, which did not extend to Article 19. Sanctioning the priority of national unity channelled through elaborate administrative practices, Article 19 of the GCC embodied the fundamental assumption that only those of ethnic Greek descent are entitled to an unconditional right to citizenship. Maintaining it in force enabled Greek authorities to ultimately annul the rights Greek citizenship accorded to the members of historical minorities, by depriving them of their legal status as such. At the same time, its tenacity was further bolstered by its perceived signicance in sustaining a balance in Greeces relations with Turkey, where the Greek minority had been demographically decimated. It is in the frame of GreekTurkish relations and in a fundamentally instrumental fashion underpinned by a realpolitik logic that the Greek government began to

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reect on the need to respect the rights of the minority. It began to perceive ` the necessity of such a change as a means to improve Greeces leverage vis-avis Turkey and stem international criticisms of how the Greek government treated the minority. The Council of Europe, Human Rights and the Abrogation of Article 19 After 1995, the Greek government began to adjust its positions abroad with respect to European texts on minority protection and citizenship, which had been proliferating during the preceding years, elaborating further on types of rights available to individuals and groups. A major step with regard to the latter was the adoption of the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML) in 1992 by the CoE, the product of a long process that had began in the second half of the 1980s (Tsitselikis 1996: 18184). The FCPNM adopted in 1995 by the CoE was the rst multilateral text dening basic principles of minority protection that signatory states had to respect, together with a mechanism to monitor them. Under the leadership of Simitis, the PASOK government that came to power after the 1996 elections set the goal of full integration in the EU and accession to the EMU as the broad frame dening the contours of its policies. With its expressed will to pursue EMU, the PASOK government signed the ECRML without the slightest reaction on the part of the patriotic opposition (Kostopoulos 2000: 349). Besides the advent of PASOKs Europeanist faction to power, a more receptive approach towards minorities was occasioned by the impasse, already discernible by 199394, to which the intransigent stance of the previous governments over the name of Macedonia had led. The manifest failure of the maximalist nationalist approach perversely triggered a reaction among political analysts and academics who engaged in a broader reassessment of Greek foreign policy and its strategic interests (Kofos 1999: 390). Reecting an emerging foreign policy contingent that straddled party lines, they began to view foreign policy priorities through the lens of strengthening Greeces position within the EU as a means to harnessing the support of the latter in containing Turkish claims in Cyprus and the Aegean. They furthermore urged the government to assume a leadership role in European eorts to reconstruct and stabilise the troubled region of the Balkans and to abandon its maximalist stance, which was perceived to fuel further into claims about the existence of a Macedonia minority in Greece. The ascendance of this cross-party contingent began to pit the ethnocentrists (advocates of nationalism) against the Europeanists, advocating a compromise approach to the issue of the name, the reorientation of Greeces Balkan policy along EU lines, and greater attention to human rights and minority issues (Kofos 1999: 38991). A number of initiatives taken by the political leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs after 1995 indicate a growing interest in issues of linguisticcultural diversity and concern with bringing Greek laws and practices into line

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with the emerging international and European norms regarding minorities. In December 1995, a daylong and little publicised conference on the ethnic, social and historical origins of the Slavic-speaking population, which was held in the Ministry of Foreign Aairs, witnessed the discussion of views that called for a less exclusive understanding of national community and identity. The latter was further acknowledged by the then Deputy Foreign Minister George Papandreou in a conference organised by the Minority Groups Research Centre at Panteion University in October 1998. In his visit to Skopje, FYROM, two months later, Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos stated that there is no Slavic minority in Greece, but those individuals wishing to practise their culture and learn their language are free to do so, and can take their complaints to the CoE if they feel that Greece denies their rights as such (Kostopoulos 2000: 35051). Domestically, the government extended the relaxation of restrictive measures to the Slavic speakers of northern Greece in what amounted to a de facto rather than an openly expressed change (Kostopoulos 2000: 348). Political leaders, however, sought to keep a low prole in the aforementioned initiatives and statements, which were given little public exposure, indicating their underlying concern with arousing opposition among the broader Greek public (Kostopoulos 2000: 352). While the aforementioned reorientation in human rights and minority issues was no doubt limited among individual leaders of the government and the Ministry of Foreign Aairs in particular, it also reected a broader, even if thin realisation among the political elites that domestically respecting these principles enhanced the countrys standing abroad. This more receptive political milieu was further conrmed by the decision of the PASOK government in 1996 to ratify the International Covenant for Individual and Civil Rights. One of the sticking points that had led Greece to abstain from its ratication for 30 years after its adoption by the UN (in 1966) was Article 27, on the obligation of states to protect the culture, language and religious freedom of members of minorities residing in them. On 29 October 1996, the Foreign Minister Pangalos and Minister of Justice Evangelos Yiannopoulos introduced the draft law to ratify the Covenant. The draft law included a reservation stating that the obligations dened by Article 27 pertained to individuals belonging to minorities, and would not interfere with the provisions of the Lausanne Treaty. In the relevant discussion that took place in the Greek Parliament, MPs across the political parties unanimously approved Law 2462/1997 ratifying the Covenant. Agreeing that the nature of the Covenants obligations did not raise any issue of interference with the Lausanne Treaty, Greece decided to drop the aforementioned reservation in order not to give other states a reason to criticise. In conceding to its ratication, the representative of ND specically explained that instead of foreign governments assessing how these principles are implemented in other countries, it is better to do this ourselves, a kind of self-criticism that can lead to better and more qualitative democracy (Parliamentary Proceedings 1997).

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Despite their political and declaratory character, the elaboration and proliferation of European texts on minority rights created a more intricate and binding external frame that reinforced pressures on the Greek government. Paradoxically, the more direct and intensive such pressures became, the less scathing and externally imposed they were perceived to be. A central target of growing criticism in the CoE, which increasingly brought under its supervision issues pertaining to citizenship rights, was Article 19 of the GCC, the focus of ongoing and strong minority grievances in Thrace. The adoption of the European Convention on Nationality by the CoE in November 1997 was designed to facilitate acquisition or recovery of nationality and to ensure that the latter is lost only for good reason and cannot be arbitrarily withdrawn.4 A report on the rights of Muslims in Thrace submitted to the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE (PACE) in 1997 raised the possibility of opening a monitoring process to investigate the matter (Hersant 2000: 6465). This report, which contained a critical assessment of the situation of Muslims (that is, regarding their educational rights and job prospects in the public sector), highlighted the ongoing validity of Article 19 as the epitome of unequal treatment continuing to dene Greek state policy towards this population. In early November 1997, the Monitoring Committee of the CoE discussed the allegations contained in the report and set a meeting for mid-January 1998 to make a nal decision on whether it would proceed with a monitoring process (Eleftherotypia, 9.11.1997). Even though the actual political weight of the aforementioned report was debatable (signed by only 12 delegates of the PACE), it made an impact on Greek political leaders growing increasingly sensitive about Greeces disputed reputation in the eld of minority protection. Its appearance in the CoE caused concern that the pro-Turkish lobby could capitalise on the prestige of such a high political body [as the PACE] to compel Greece to conform to the reports proposals (Eleftherotypia, 9.11.1997). The renewed criticisms in the CoE put the national government in a particularly irksome position. The Greek delegate to the PACE, Kimon Koulouris, found it dicult to defend the latter as it became apparent that government leaders did not have a united stance on the issue. The criticisms in the CoE played a catalytic role in galvanising a new initiative to tackle Article 19, which came from the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs which had just signed the European Convention on Nationality and which during the preceding months had been waiting to seize such an opportunity. It comprised deputy Foreign Ministers Papandreou and the late Giannos Kranidiotis, who held moderate and liberal views on minority issues, and followed in the footsteps of former deputy Foreign Minister Christos Rozakis, a judge in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In the Ministry, they had organised working groups to brief them on related European developments and were able to convince the more reluctant Foreign Minister at the time, Pangalos. In 1997, they were given the

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green light to proceed by Simitis, who was in favour of abolishing the controversial provision. Following the appearance of the report, the Ministry of Foreign Aairs promptly launched a round of deliberations to discuss the possibility of abolishing Article 19 with the MI that was responsible to administratively implement it. During the previous months, inter-ministerial talks held on the issue sought to avoid publicity and revealed a divergence of views, with the Ministry of the Interior opposing proposals to eliminate the controversial article (Eleftherotypia, 3.11.1997; 9.11.1997; Apogevmatini, 29.1.1997). Minister of the Interior Alekos Papadopoulos allegedly opposed the latter on the grounds that it would trigger strong reactions among the Greek public, particularly in areas such as minority-inhabited Thrace and Epirus, where Albanian-speaking Tsams who left the country during World War II could claim back their Greek nationality. Even though the political tones had been deliberately kept low, the possibility of abolishing Article 19 provoked strong reactions primarily from the local community in Thrace: the Greek Christian population, local authorities and the Orthodox Church.5 Speaking through the bishops of Xanthi and Komotini, the latter characterised its annulment as a national betrayal (Eleftheros Typos, 18.9.1997; 1.11.1997). Local views opposing the abolition of Article 19 found an outlet in extreme nationalist newspapers with limited circulation at the national level. The main grounds for opposition were that such a change would pave the way for the restitution of Greek nationality to thousands of minority members and alter the demographic balance in the region. Striking an alarmist tone, they claimed that it would pose a threat to the territorial integrity of the country and invigorate nationalist claims for Turkish self-determination in the region under the auspices of Ankara (Eleftheri Ora, 31.10.1997). Abrogating Article 19 would purportedly be a further concession to Turkey, which had long since breached the reciprocity clause of the Lausanne Treaty by expelling the Greeks of Istanbul, as well as an act of submission to international pressures exercised on behalf of Turkey. Viewing Article 19 as a means to safeguard national security, Emilia Ladopoulou, president of the National Union of Northern Greeks, appealed to the power of Greek consciousness . . . and the interests of the Greek nation . . . to turn down the instigators of this anti-national plan (Nemesis, October 1997: 54). Signicantly, the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs and the Ministry of the Interior largely avoided making public the divergence of views between them. These only faintly leaked to the press, possibly suggesting that in spite of such dierences there was strong determination to reach an early consensus on the issue (Ta Nea. 24.1.1998). By mid-January 1998 an agreement between the two ministries to abolish Article 19 was reached, however, on the basis of a rm limitation: that its annulment would not be applied with retroactive force. The latter would have been a corrective measure enabling tens of thousands of individuals and their families who had been deprived of Greek nationality to reclaim it, and it was a demand strongly

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supported by the minority in Thrace (Eleftherotypia, 8.12.1997). On 23 January 1998, the cabinet unanimously decided to abolish Article 19 by law. Simitis characterised the decision as an important step that should have occurred earlier, fully compatible with the governments policy on human rights, while Papadopoulos declared it to be in accordance with the principles of legal equality equal citizenship (Ta Nea, 24.1.1998; Avriani, 24.1.1998). In contrast to local society and press in Thrace, newspapers with nationwide circulation responded positively and with moderation to the announced change. Leftist papers heralded the decision as an extension of democratic rights, putting an end to the status of second class citizenship to which the minority had been relegated (Exousia, 23.1.1998; Rizospastis, 17.12.1997). The centre-right daily Kathimerini also received it positively (17.1.1998). It stated that the government assigns great importance to this initiative anticipated to contribute to the isolation of extreme nationalist circles, whether Greek or Turkish, in the region of Thrace . . . and to disarm Ankara and the international organisations that condemn our country for discriminatory treatment against a group of citizens. On 9 June 1998, the Greek Parliament voted to abrogate Article 19 (Law 2623/1998, Art. 14, Government Gazette, Issue 258 A) with the support of all political parties with the exception of the nationalist-socialist Democratic Socialist Movement ( , DIKKI). Both the timing and the manifest determination of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs to push ahead with the abolition of Article 19 suggest a direct connection with the goal of averting the opening of a monitoring procedure by the CoE. A report drafted after the visit of CoE delegates on a fact-nding visit to Greece concluded that following the decision to abolish Article 19 there was no need to open a monitoring procedure against Greece. It stated that Greeces signing of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCPNM) on 22 September 1997 and the commitment made by the Greek government [to abolish Article 19] constitute gestures of good will on the part of Greek authorities (Hersant 2000: 6465). The close link between the abrogation of Article 19 and the CoE is also evidenced in a letter from Foreign Minister Papandreou (dated 24 January 1998), which informed the president of the Monitoring Committee in the CoE of the positive decision regarding Article 19. It assured him that the Greek government has always shown a sensitivity towards human rights and has the political will to continue to work, in cooperation with the competent committees of the CoE towards the same direction in the future (Hersant 2000: 66). Following the approval of the law that abrogated Article 19, Apostolos Kaklamanis, President of the Greek Parliament, informed the President of PACE of the outcome and expressed his regret that the Bureau of PACE hastened to refer to the possibility of a monitoring procedure (Hersant 2000: 65).

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Expanding Citizenship: European Norms and the Interests of National Unity In June 1998, the draft of the law that included the provision abrogating Article 19 (Law 2623/1998) was introduced for discussion in the Greek Parliament. It is noteworthy that this controversial provision had the support of all four largest parties represented in Parliament (PASOK, ND, Coalition of the Left, KKE), albeit with several MPs from both the governing party PASOK and the ND opposition dissenting. The prevailing logic on the basis of which the abrogation of Article 19 was defended in parliament was largely instrumental: to deprive Turkey, the minority and other European states of another reason to criticise Greece for discriminatory treatment of minorities. Only the representatives of the parties of the Left (KKE and Coalition of the Left), as well as the three Muslim deputies, advanced a strong argument in favour of abolishing Article 19 on grounds of principle. In reference to European norms and principles, they appealed to the need to strengthen legal equality and the protection of human rights and to deepen democracy in Greece. This group of representatives proposed that the abolition of Article 19 should have retroactive force, namely to allow for the restitution of Greek citizenship to individuals who had been deprived of it through this article in the preceding decades. However, reaching cross-party consensus was only possible on a more restrictive clause providing that the abrogation of Article 19 would only be valid for the future and would not have retroactive force. Those seeking to regain Greek nationality would have to apply for it and undergo the lengthy naturalisation process required by law. A number of MPs both from PASOK and ND defended the preservation of Article 19 as imperative in order to continue to counterbalance what they saw as Turkeys expansionist policies towards Greece. They strongly opposed its abrogation as an unjustiable and humiliating compromise to ` external pressures that went against Greeces vital national interests vis-a-vis Turkey. In invoking the reciprocity clause of the Lausanne Treaty, PASOK MPs (Christos Kipouros, Kyriakos Spyriounis, Anastasios Peponis) saw the ` abolition as an asymmetrical response vis-a-vis Turkey, on the grounds that it had violated the rights of the Greeks of Istanbul. They cautioned that a possible resettlement of Turks in Thrace would further Turkeys plans to destabilise the region. Kipouros claimed that no European state, not even one of the Third World, would behave so submissively [as Greece] towards whichever external pressures (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10377). Even more passionate was the defence of the rights and unity of the Greek nation that came from ND MPs (Apostolos Andreoulakos, Elias Vezdrevanis and Eugenios Haitidis). Invoking national poets and values of national honour, they called the abrogation of Article 19 an instance of national mutilation, urging the Assembly to demonstrate national bravery and not to accept lessons of human rights from the Europeans and the Americans (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10378). In a provocative

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tone, Andreoulakos exclaimed that rst comes the nation and then democracy (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10378). The proponents of Article 19 vehemently defended the treatment of the minority in Thrace as awlessly democratic and contended that Greece should not be taken to task about it. While criticising ND for nationalism, Kipouros nonetheless stated that the present compromise is not in harmony with the reasons for which PASOK was founded and has existed, alluding to PASOKs ardent appeal to national sovereignty in the 1970s and 1980. Moreover, the Turkish problem cannot be redressed through surrender (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10386). A rm response to the vehement assertion of national interests and identity came from the deputies of the Left and from the three minority deputies elected from the ranks of ND, PASOK and the Coalition of the Left. Reacting strongly to accusations of lacking in patriotic feeling, the MP from Coalition of the Left, Fotis Kouvelis, stressed the imperative of abolishing Article 19 in order to expand democracy and submitted an amendment to extend it retroactively. Assenting to the latter as necessary to correct an injustice, Stratis Korakas of KKE characterised Article 19 as a product of an abnormal and unjust era that has to be eliminated in order to safeguard legal equality equal citizenship for the minority (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 1038485). Achilleas Kantartzis of KKE dissociated Article 19 from Greek Turkish relations and the logic of bilateral reciprocity, emphasising that the abolition of the former has to do with basic human rights . . . what was said with regard to defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity is another matter (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10387). Representatives of the Left were committed to its repeal on grounds of principle, possibly due to a sense of historically conditioned anity with minority members victimised by it, given that thousands of communists had also been targets of a similar provision during the 1940s. The three minority deputies (Birol Akifoglou, Galip Galip and Moustafa Moustafa) heralded the governments initiative to abrogate Article 19 as a decision putting an end to a provision that for years arbitrarily deprived the minority of its rights in the name of national unity. While heralding it as a step in line with European norms of human rights, they lamented the governments refusal to extend it retroactively. According to Akifoglou, such backing reinforces the impression that the government proceeded to the abrogation not because it believes in the need to bolster democracy and rule of law but because it is subject to external pressures (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 1038182). Even though it was the governing party PASOK that initiated the abrogation of the controversial provision, the defence on behalf of this initiative on the part of the partys representatives in parliament was rather modest and lukewarm. Besides Minister of Interior Papadopoulos, who introduced the provision abrogating Article 19, only three other PASOK MPs came to its support. While MPs such as Papadopoulos and Grigoris

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Niotis defended the minority MPs who became a target of nationalist remarks insinuating that they were agents of Turkey, socialist support for the abrogation was professed in mild and ambivalent terms, possibly in order to pre-empt more vocal reactions. While assuring that the government was rm about its decision not to extend retroactively the proposed abrogation, Papadopoulos justied the latter in legalistic terms in reference to the Constitution. By allowing Article 19 to remain in force only until its repeal by law, the constitutional lawmaker, as he stated, intended it to be a transitory provision. Phoebus Ioannides of PASOK deemed the abrogation of Article 19 to be a positive step that will not pose a problem for our country . . . and it is of course with a sense of patriotic duty that the government proceeds to it (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10379). While instantly and sharply reacting to Andreoulakos view granting the nation primacy over democracy, Ioannides countered in a restrained manner that neither should be prioritised and that Hellenism and democracy are one and the same (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10379). At the same time, Ioannides felt obliged to express his understanding of the nationalist reactions by recognising that Hellenism had suered greatly from Turkeys politicalmilitary establishment. Juxtaposing the two countries, Ioannides depicted Greece as a fully edged democracy that respected human rights and ensured equal treatment of the Muslims of Thrace. While the ND opposition ocially endorsed the abrogation of Article 19, it did so on the grounds that enhancing Greeces democratic reputation ` promoted national interests vis-a-vis Turkey. On behalf of ND, MP Prokopis Pavlopoulos, a leading member of the opposition, felt compelled to elaborate the partys stance and clarify that ND conceded to the abrogation but defended its substantive content, which it did not consider to be unconstitutional or illegitimate. Pavlopoulos emphatically stated that its abrogation must not be seen as an act of regret for a mistaken policy of the past. Instead, he argued, Article 19 was a right decision of the Greek state, which for the same reasons that it once instituted it, today believes that it should abolish it (emphasis added), implying that it was national interests ` vis-a-vis Turkey that render the latter imperative. The Greek government arguably does so in order to remove the last reason from those who seek to exploit this provision in order to attribute to our country an intent that it does not have and never had (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10380). The discussions that took place in the Greek Parliament show that the strong determination of the government and the leadership of the large parties to abrogate Article 19 went hand in hand with signicant reservations, if not opposition, within the ranks of the two main parties. Restricting it to the future, the law that abolished it would not have immediate repercussions and thus only limited political cost, while upgrading Greeces democratic image in the CoE. It was the rm resolution to prevent its retroactive force that made it possible to arrive at a consensus with ND and with MPs, who otherwise defended Article 19 and did not

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consider it to be a source of democratic decit. Capturing the delicate balances that had to be kept, towards the end of the discussion in parliament Kouvelis (of the Coalition of the Left) sought to cushion instead of challenging the government: I am aware that it is on the basis of the will to deepen democracy that the government promotes this measure. There may have been external pressures in the past, but I dont think that these drive your decision to abrogate Article 19. I will not insist on the amendment [to extend it retroactively], not because I dont believe in it but because I realise the climate that exists. (Parliamentary Proceedings, 9.6.1998: 10388) Conclusion Article 19 of the GCC was the last fortress of a long-term discriminatory policy towards the minority, which began to liberalise in the early 1990s. Being instigated by the possibility that the CoE open a monitoring procedure, its abrogation in the second half of the 1990s was no doubt connected to the European regime of human rights norms largely emanating from the CoE. The latter played a decisive role by what has been called shaming: namely creating an international climate at the European level critical of national practices (Moravscik 1995: 161). In the Greek case, such a climate in the second half of the 1990s catalysed the initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs to repeal Article 19 and to shift the balance between government and party elites towards those who were eager to avoid undermining Greeces reputation abroad. The role of European human rights norms should not be underestimated because reference to the latter by opponents of Article 19 was cautiously and systematically avoided. In post1974 Greece, complying with external imperatives often fell prey to nationalist reactions depicting it as a humiliating submission. Such references were only indirect, with the abrogation of the controversial provision seen to conrm Greeces purportedly robust democracy that scored high in comparison to Turkey in the European system of human rights and minority protection. On the whole, however, the determined initiative on the part of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs to rescind the controversial article was made possible by a wholesale pragmatic reassessment of the style and strategic ` goals of Greek foreign policy vis-a-vis Turkey and the Balkans in the second half of the 1990s (Ioakimidis 2000: 364). It began to move away from an overwhelming emphasis on and narrow conception of national issues (ethnika themata), as well as from the symbolic weight foreign policy acquired as political leaders in the post-1974 period customarily used it to make resounding declarations of national sovereignty. In this respect, the abrogation of Article 19 can be seen as having been driven by an instrumental logic of national interests and strategic ends. Retaining it

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was now perceived to have many costs (criticisms from European institutions) and few benets for GreekTurkish relations, in which Cyprus, the Aegean and Turkeys pursuit of EU membership became the centre of gravity. The necessary cross-party consensus between PASOK and the ND opposition was possible to achieve only on the basis of a restricted clause and of an instrumental logic that depicted the abrogation of Article 19 as a ` positive step for Greeces national interests vis-a-vis Turkey. At the same time, the reconceptualisation of foreign policy interests, particularly the belief that deepening democracy by protecting human rights and minorities enhanced rather than undermined security, was itself made possible by a process of normative change. Limited as it may have been in specic quarters and among individuals of the Ministry of Foreign Aairs and the government most closely involved in the workings of European institutions, the view that respecting the individual rights of minorities was something to be proud of rather than threatened by began to gain currency. It was not accidental that from the second half of the 1990s onwards the Ministry of Foreign Aairs has consistently had a leadership of liberal orientation. Unlike in the early 1990s when Greeces treatment of minorities was also subject to international criticism, such criticisms in 1997 had an immediate domestic eect precisely because signicant acquaintance with and conversion to European liberal norms of human rights had already taken place in the course of the decade. The redenition of minority policy that culminated with the abrogation of Article 19 in the 1990s far from attests to a broader endorsement of minority rights or to a redenition of citizenship in a post-national direction among parliamentary representatives and Greek society at large. In 1999, the twenty-fth anniversary of Greeces transition to democracy, the three minority deputies at the time issued a public appeal urging the government to recognise national minorities and to ratify the FCPNM. Their appeal provoked strongly negative reactions across political parties and leaders, even from those known to have a more sympathetic approach to the issue, such as former Foreign Minister Papandreou and the Coalition of the Left and the Progress (Papanikolatos 1999). Their manifest hesitation to endorse the aforementioned declaration was possibly driven by consideration of the political costs such a stance might have with national elections less than a year away. The widespread disinclination to approach minority issues and policy through open and direct reference to European texts of minority protection such as the FCPNM is further linked to the possibility of revising or abandoning the Lausanne Treaty in case Greece raties the Framework Convention. Greek political elites and representatives continue to strongly resist such a prospect. While there is little evidence indicating a reconceptualisation of national identity in a multi-cultural direction, nonetheless the liberal view that the guarantee of equal rights to all individuals is important for Greece as a member of the EU has acquired widespread acceptance among the Greek elite.

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1. The overall population of Thrace is 340,000. The size of the Turkish Muslim population in Thrace is a matter of dispute due to their large-scale immigration over the years and the lack of an ocial census since the 1960s. Alexandris estimated the minority in 1981 to be about 120,000, with 45% Turkish-speaking, 36% Pomaks and 18% Roma (Alexandris 1988: 524). 2. Decision 106841/29-12-1982 of the Minister of Interior provided for the restitution citizenship to ethnic Greek individuals who had left the country as political refugees during the civil war (194649), but made it very hard to restore it to individuals who were from Slavic-speaking areas (Kostopoulos 2003: 68). 3. Greek Ministry of Foreign Aairs, Memorandum of Alexis Heraclides, 26 February 1991; Evangelos Kofos, Questions and Answers for our Minority Policy, 29 April 1991. 4. See European Convention on Nationality, Summary of the treaty that opened for signature on 6 November 1997 and entered into force on 1 March 2000. See http://conventions.coe.int/ Treaty/en/Summaries/Html/166.htm 5. This was also emphasised to this author by the Deputy Minister of Interior at the time Lambros Papadimas (Interview, Athens, 19.4.2004).

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