A platform for populists

The Greeks have a strong Mediterranean, and short-tempered, character. This has often become evident in the past, particularly on foreign policy issues. It is a strange thing.

The Cyprus issue, for example, rarely grabs newspaper headlines. Nevertheless, a single wrong move by a political leader can inflict a hefty cost on his career. Greece's late Socialist prime minister Andreas Papandreou offered his famous "mea culpa" after he was attacked at home for not bringing up the Cyprus issue during his meeting in Davos with his Turkish counterpart Turgut Ozal in 1988.

In the case of the name dispute with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Greek leaders were led astray by sentiment during the 1990s. It was not that they could not see they were in the wrong. In fact, most of the country's political leaders (former Communist Party chief Aleka Papariga set...