The Greek Economic and Political Crisis: What it Means for Europe

Thursday, April 19, 2012
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
(Pacific)
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Speaker: 

This event is co-sponsored with The Europe Center

Abstract:

Ruby Gropas is a lecturer in international relations at the law faculty of the Democritus University of Thrace (Komotini) and research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). Gropas was in residence at CDDRL in 2011 as a visiting scholar. In this seminar she will discuss the ongoing Greek economic and political crisis, and what it means for the future of the European Union and monetary system. Is the crisis in Greece ‘internal’ or is it symptomatic of a wider European failure? Is the Greek crisis the result of failed modernity, or rather a precursor of things to come? Why has Greece become so important and why has it dominated global politics and world news for the past two years?  Are its malignancies purely domestic or are they representative of a wider malaise within Europe and possibly beyond? The collapse and orderly default of a eurozone country at the heart of the Western financial system arguably marks the end of an era. It has brought with it the deepest social and political crisis that modern Greecehas faced since the restoration of democracy and it has also led to Europe's deepest existential crisis. With the EU struggling to effectively managing the eurozone crisis and the burst of recent movements opposing neo-liberal orthodoxy and the “Occupy” movements – what does this mean for Europe? And what is next?

Speaker Bio: 

Ruby Gropas has worked on asylum and migration issues for UNHCR in Brussels and worked for McKinsey & Co. in Zurich and Athens (2000-2002). As part of the ELIAMEP team, her research concentrates on European integration and foreign policy, Transatlantic relations, human rights, migration and multiculturalism. She was Managing Editor of the Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (Taylor & Francis) between January 2006 and October 2009. Ruby has taught at the University of Athens and at College Year in Athens. She was Southeast Europe Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC in 2007 and again in 2009. She is Vice-President of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation Scholars' Association since June 2009, and was Member of the Academic Organisation Committee of the Global Forum for Migration and Development, Civil Society Days, Athens 2009.

Ruby studied Political Science at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (1994) and undertook graduate studies at the University of Leuven (MA in European Studies) and at Cambridge University (MPhil in International Relations). She holds a PhD in History from Cambridge University (New Hall, 2000).