Abstract

The financial crisis of 2008 has had profound effects on the EU, especially on some of its southern members. In Greece, the effects of the financial crisis and the austerity measures put into place to fight this crisis had culminated in a political crisis. Consequently, Syriza has come to power with various promises to take Greece out of this crisis.

In the light of these developments, in the first part of this paper, the aim is to evaluate the Greek debt crisis and the Syriza victory within the framework of the EU. Then, in the second part, the paper aims to investigate whether this specific time period can be used as a turning point in Greco-Turkish relations to solve the long standing and unresolved problems between the two countries as well as improving the EU-Turkish relations.