ABSTRACT
In 1969, following an American proposal, NATO set up its environmental programme, the Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS). The CCMS developed a series of pilot projects involving air and water pollution, disposal of hazardous waste and, after 1973, energy projects. This chapter discusses the Greek responses to the CCMS. The Colonels were an anti-modernist force, unable to perceive the issues and to act. They tried to use the CCMS politically in order to secure international status and recognition. When they failed in this, they effectively ignored the CCMS. Greece’s adjustment to the new environmental agenda until 1974 was made mostly through civic society and largely against the attitudes of the government. After the restoration of democracy, from early 1975, Greece began to cooperate in CCMS work more intensely. The aim was twofold: to use an uncontroversial, ‘apolitical’ subject in order to stabilize the troubled relations with the alliance; and to secure firm results on the level of environmental policy itself. This oblique use of the CCMS as a modernist project bringing the new democracies of Southern Europe closer to NATO is also evident in the cases of Portugal and Spain during their transitions to democracy.
