Greece and the European Union. Taking the chair

Date: 04/01/03

Greece's leader has high hopes for its EU presidency but faces big problems

AFTER Denmark's successful six-month stint in the European Union's chair, Greece's prime minister, Costas Simitis, is keen to do as well. Under his aegis, Greece has overcome its reputation as the EU's unruly teenager. At last month's Copenhagen summit he dropped his caution about Turkey, energetically backing Turkish efforts to secure a firm date for accession talks.

His big opportunity will be the ceremony in Athens on April 16th, when the EU's ten prospective new members are due to sign their accession treaties. Greece will try hard to ensure that the ten include a soon-to-be reunified Cyprus, not just, de facto, the Greek-Cypriot half. The United Nations is squeezing the rival Cypriots to reach at least a framework agreement on a form of unity by February 28th.

Mr Simitis cannot put domestic politics on hold. He has taken personal responsibility for the success of the Athens Olympic games in August 2004, a time-consuming chore thanks to infighting among organisers and delays in building new sports and media facilities. He also has to fend off George Papandreou, the foreign minister and front-runner to succeed him as Socialist party leader, who sees the EU presidency as a chance to promote his own prime-ministerial ambitions.

Mr Papandreou is already pushing for a shift in the EU's approach to immigration that would enable young people from poor Balkan countries like Albania to get seasonal work permits rather than simply slide into the EU illegally. EU diplomats fear that the Greeks, already short of top-class civil servants able to cope with the demands of EU work, will be side-tracked from getting on with duller, nuts-and-bolts issues. And Mr Simitis's installation of one of his own men, Tassos Yannitsis, as European-affairs minister, to contain the foreign ministry, may lead to confusion.

Mr Simitis may also face real problems if the Americans attack Iraq. The EU has no true foreign policy, and a two-headed foreign-policy machine. At home, fears that tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees could turn up on Greece's shores may strengthen an expected wave of anti-American feeling. Mr Simitis had trouble controlling the hard left of his party during NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999, when daily demonstrations were held outside the American embassy in Athens. A similar sustained outcry over Iraq could ruin his dream of a smooth EU presidency.

Greece has high hopes for its time as EU President, January-June 2003, but it faces big problems.