The Impact of EU Membership: Lessons from the Greek Experience

The purpose of the present paper is twofold: firstly, to provide an ex-post evaluation of the impact of Greece’s entry into the European Union on its economic performance, during the first post-accession decade and secondly, to assess the effect in the level of domestic production arising from the shift in the patterns and volumes of trade. An especially noteworthy feature of Greece’s entry is that it constitutes the first attempt of integration within the EU of a very dissimilar economy, not only in terms of per capita income, but also of laws and standards governing agriculture and general economic activity. It has been found that membership had a negative impact on the balance of trade, resulting in heavy losses on the income transfers between Greece and the EU. Moreover, accession seems to have significantly affected the internal structure of the Greek economy.