ABSTRACT
From the perspective of 2019, it is impossible to give the post-1989 history of Southeastern Europe either a simply optimistic or pessimistic twist. Theoretically, European integration not only diminishes the arena for conflict and but also promotes economic development through access to the Common Market and to the EU's Structural Funds. But so far, European integration has produced uneven economic results in Southeastern Europe. But there, as a consequence of a divisively federalized and ethnicized political system, too many dissidents criticized communism from a nationalist point of view. During the Cold War few people had thought in terms of differences as "Western" or "Central", or "Southeastern" Europe but subordinated all these divisions to the confrontation between capitalist democracy and communism. While the post-communist states of Southeastern Europe reached bottom during the 1990s, Greece’s problems became apparent only with the financial crisis of 2008.
