ABSTRACT
Far from being a time of duress and privation, the 1980s and 1990s were on the contrary a “golden age” of sustained growth and increased prosperity for Mediterranean Europe. While the region immediately felt the effects of the financial disaster of 2008 – for example in Spain, where the financial crash burst the real estate bubble, the recession of 2008–2010 was not followed by a period of slow growth as in most of Europe, but by a deepening of the crisis. Against the backdrop of a collapsing economy, particularly in Greece where the recession ended only in 2014, the social consequences could only be spectacular. The experience of the crisis radically altered the social composition of Southern Europe, and with it, its political climate. The countries of Southern Europe have to face a situation where a whole section of their population is now completely excluded from the economic system and this social marginalization cannot go without political repercussions.
