THE CASE OF THE WESTERN THRACE MINORITY

For the Greek administrative tradition, the creation of viable and active sub-national structures capable of exercising power had never been a widespread public demand and was largely perceived as a threat to the country’s territorial integrity. On the other hand, the European Union’s cohesion policy, designed to redress the large disparities among the poorest regions, has challenged territorial patterns of government, potentially unsettling established forms of national politics and identity. Aiming to overcome the inherent weakness of centralized states to design and implement regional projects, the EU's 1988 reform highlighted the principle of subsidiarity premised on the mobilization and active participation of society’s local forces. Underpinned by explicit economic goals but also and perhaps more importantly, by an implicit concern to promote political integration, such an approach designated sub-national authorities as equal partners with national and European actors.

Part of the administrative region of East Macedonia and Thrace (Περιφέρεια Ανατολικής Μακεδονίας και Θράκης), Thrace consists of three prefectures, Ksanthi, Rhodope and Evros, and ranks at the low end of the EU scale in terms of per capita income and overall development. A relic of the country’s Ottoman past, Thrace’s designated ‘Muslim minority’ was exempt correspondingly with the Greeks of Istanbul, from the mandatory population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1922. Its status has been guaranteed by the international Treaty of Lausanne (1923) signed in the aftermath of World War I, whose section on the ‘Protection of Minorities’ was a bilateral treaty between Greece and Turkey.

The politicization of Thrace’s minority gained momentum, in the second half of the 1980s,  around a powerful demand for self-definition as a ‘Turkish minority,’ capitalizing upon increasing concern and activism of European institutions around human rights. For the first time, the minority began to cast its vote not on the basis of individual favours promised by candidates in the two main political parties, but by asserting a distinct ethnic Turkish consciousness. Following a Supreme Court decision in 1984 that ordered that signs designating local associations as ‘Turkish’ should be taken down, the movement for self-definition found expression in an initiative that slated independent minority candidates for the first time for the 1985 elections. Having the political support and backing of Turkey, it provoked tremendous opposition from the Greek authorities and the public, which viewed it as a flagrant challenge to national unity and a prelude to autonomy demands in the region. The movement gained mass support in 1989-90, when an electoral alliance was formed under the leadership of the Ahmet Sadik and succeeded in electing two deputies to the Greek Parliament. In January 1990, following Sadik's penal persecution by the Greek courts for referring to the minority as 'Turkish' during his electoral campaign, escalating inter-communal tensions erupted into protests and incidents of vandalism in Komotini that alarmed the national government.  

In an effort to relax inter-communal tensions and to pacify international criticism, the right wing government of Konstantinos Mitsotakis, in 1991 abolished the restrictive measures against Turkish Muslims and vowed to restitute their rights in the spirit of “legal equality - equal citizenship” (ισονομία - ισοπολιτεία). However, a change in electoral law essentially targeting the independent minority candidates, set a minimum 3% threshold for a political party to enter parliament and effectively precluded their re-election of the minority candidates to parliament.

At the same time, regional policy was for the most part based on arbitrary government decisions, permeated by party interests that distributed rights and benefits through clientelistic networks to those deemed politically loyal. An overarching ideological imperative of national unity pervaded and served to justify the reproduction of highly centralized state structures and distribution of resources. In Thrace, depriving Muslims of rights and resources and exclusively privileging Christians was considered imperative in order to defend the region and country against the Turkish “threat”.

From the 1960s onwards, under the supervision of the Foreign Ministry, the euphemistically entitled Office of Cultural Affairs (Γραφείο Εκπολιτιστικών Υποθέσεων) in the prefectures of Ksanthi and Rhodope, handled all affairs related to Turkish Muslims with absolute discretion, in violation of laws and rights applying to Greek citizens in general. Run by high-rank state officials ironically referred to as the “minority governors”, who had been appointed by the military regime, these offices monitored and circumscribed all economic transactions involving Muslims. Unofficial but elaborate practices and networks of employees and interest groups linked to the state administration, as well as to banks and enterprises, systematically prevented most Muslims from acquiring property or performing even routine matters such as receiving bank loans or driving licenses, finding employment, etc. This was only possible with the consent of the government-appointed prefect and the prefecture administration directly subordinate to the central ministries. This policy lead unavoidably to the escalation of tension between the two communities in the late 80’s.

In the same period, Thrace became a target of generous subsidies granted in the name of national and security interests. Policies and decisions vis-a-vis the region materialized through alliances between the central government, economic interests and political constituencies in Thrace linked to the local and prefecture administration and backed by nationalist organizations. In systematically denying to the minority basic rights, such as the acquisition of property or expansion of economic activity, state policy put an absolute block on the development of Muslim-inhabited areas, sustained the region’s dependence on agriculture and distorted its economy as a whole. The two prefectures under study are characterized by glaring disparities between a minority-inhabited mountainous and undeveloped zone in the north, and a southern predominantly Christian zone, which is fertile and more prosperous, between which is an intermediate belt with mixed population. Up until 1996, the northern mountainous areas entirely populated by the minority were designated as ‘restricted zones’, where travel by outsiders required special clearance and a permit from the police. The majority of Muslims work in agriculture and have a long tradition in the growing of labour-intensive eastern varieties of tobacco, until recently making up over 90 per cent of the region’s tobacco producers. The prefecture of Ksanthi, primarily populated by Pomaks, has a significant industrial and manufacturing sector with development and infrastructure indicators around the national average, while the predominantly ethnic Turkish and agricultural prefecture of Rhodope ranks near the bottom of national scale.

BETWEEN NATIONAL INTERESTS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: THE REGIONAL REFORMS

The development of Greek nationalism in Thrace and its entrenchment in clientelistic relations and political parties was historically made possible by - and in turn reinforced - the highly centralized administrative and territorial structures of the modern Greek state. Since its foundation in the 19^th century, this centralist predilection was explicitly geared towards national homogenization and the achievement of social-political unification.

It was entrenched in the country’s long-lived administrative division into 51 prefectures, consisting of fragmented departmental units directly linked to and dependent on their respective central ministries, while minimally connected to their social and cultural milieu  

Headed by the government-appointed prefect, the prefectures' professed development role flowed directly from central imperatives and decisions. As loci of clientelistic relations and centres for distributing and coordinating public investments in their territory, they functioned as important instruments for and structures of local dominance of central government and the governing party.  Consisting of a weak and extremely fragmented system of municipalities (δήμοι) and communes (κοινότητες), local government was financially dependent on the central state, which exercized supervision and political control through the government-appointed prefect.

After the Greek transition to democracy in 1974 and particularly following the advent to power of the socialist government in 1981, growing demands for, and professed commitment to decentralization met resistance from entrenched party and national interests. Regional development was for the first time directly linked to the issue of redistribution of administrative power, yet attempted reforms failed to redress the imbalance between local level and the centre. In an attempt to disentangle the Prefecture Council from the central administration, Laws 1235 and 1262 of 1982 introduced the Prefecture Council as an institution, in which elected members of professional and local government associations, trade unions, etc., participated in an ex officio capacity. Furthermore, Law 1622 of 1986 established 13 regions (περιφέρειες) for purposes of regional planning and further enhanced the role of the Prefecture Councils in development planning. The first regional secretaries were appointed, yet these reforms, which were partly geared towards strengthening local party structures, were not fully implemented due to strong resistance against them.

Despite their incompleteness and limitations, the aforementioned reforms, along with the first attempts to implement structural funds in the 1980s, raised awareness about the transfer of power from central to local levels and thus promoted the cause of decentralization. The creation of the Prefecture Councils in 1982 increased awareness across political parties at the local level about power relations vis-à-vis the centre and the need for further decentralization.

In the 1990s, two waves of reform characterized as groundbreaking established sub-national structures and crystallized the territorial organization of the Greek state. Law 2218 of 1994 initiated the transformation of the prefecture from an arm of the central administration into an institution of local government with a directly elected prefect, and provided for a massive transfer of power from the former to the latter. It also transformed the Prefecture Council into a directly elected body, defining its goal as 'the economic, social and cultural development of the region'. The same law also provided for an expansion of the role of the 13 administrative regions (διοικητικές περιφέρειες), each of which was to establish its own Regional Development Fund and to participate as partners in formulating regional policy and administering national and European projects and funds.

The decentralizing potential of the 1994 reform triggered powerful reactions among segments of the opposition, as well as broader local and nationalist constituencies across political parties, which declared prefecture-level local government 'superficial and nationally perilous'. Pointing to the case of Thrace, they alarmingly warned that it would 'fragment the state' and strengthen Turkish nationalism, which could gain political control in Ksanthi and Rhodope where a Muslim prefect could be elected. To preempt this possibility and the consolidation of a Muslim-governed area, the law on prefecture local government was modified in the case of Ksanthi and Rhodope, which were placed in a special category of so-called “enlarged prefectures” (διευρημένες νομαρχίες) (Law 2218/94, Article 40). Essentially a form of gerrymandering targeting the minority, in effect it incorporated the largely Muslim prefectures of Ksanthi and Rhodope into the Christian-populated prefectures of Kavala and Evros respectively, thereby consolidating two predominantly Christian areas.

Notwithstanding their curtailment in Thrace, the territorial reforms of the 1990s had important impact for the minority. For the first time, the minority was depicted as a resource rather than a burden, and its integration as a precondition for the region’s development. The transformation of the Prefecture Council into a directly elected institution introduced strong pressures to show responsiveness to local problems dividing the two communities. With an interest in attracting the Muslim vote, the prefects and the enlarged (from eight to twenty-four members; about one-third in 1996 were from the minority) Prefecture Council began to make efforts to tackle the glaring disparities between the northern Muslim and the southern Christian areas. In this way, prefecture local government opened space for the representation and participation of the minority in decisions about resource distribution and regional development.

Initially, the minority viewed the reforms with ambivalence and mistrust, pointing to the special ‘enlarged prefectures’ created in Thrace to preempt the election of a Muslim prefect, or to the Regional Secretary as the new omnipotent representative of the central administration. Such reservations and scepticism were exacerbated by nationalist reactions of groups among Christians who for decades had benefited from the special privileges granted in the name of the “Turkish threat” by the heavy hand of state centralism. The hard core of Turkish nationalists within the minority, which no less opposed the reforms, seeing them as threatening their dominance, in turn provided credence and political leverage to Greek nationalists in the region. Pressures and attempts on both sides to undermine the decisions of the Prefecture Council and to interfere with development priorities of structural funds reinforced minority insecurity and mistrust and in part fuelled the familiar cycle of nationalist juxtaposition.

Embedded in the broader EU framework, the regional institutions and prefecture reforms introduced a degree of decentralization and made some headway in overcoming nationalist opposition. In the decade prior to the 1994 reform, growing mobilization and participation of local actors in structural policy and direct links with the Commission (i.e. through the monitoring committees) had diffused a consensus around EU development goals. Shared by a significant cross section of government and regional authorities, it enabled reformers to bypass (but not eliminate) nationalist opposition.

EU integration has not only provided an overarching supranational framework within which to redefine development priorities and make politically permissible the undertaking of reforms, but also - and perhaps more importantly - it has gradually contributed to fundamental local change. This has made a qualitative difference in the case of Thrace, both for the majority’s determination to resist nationalist pressures and the ability to create bridges with the minority. The regional and prefecture local government reforms of the 1990s were only the beginning of a manifold and longer-term contestation, the consequences of which have been and will be fundamental, yet are still undetermined. It appeared gradually that local government institutions fundamentally transform minority interests, identity and nationalist politics.

In the regional structures and prefecture local government in Thrace, the logic of national unity and that of European integration and development uneasily coexist, fostering not open conflict but critical awareness and discussion of previously indisputable national priorities. Regardless of whether they were motivated by party interests, personal ambition or principled commitment, the elected prefects in Ksanthi and Komotini used their newly acquired democratic legitimacy to make inroads into minority politics. Minority members frequently noted that local government made a big difference, as the prefect must be closer to the local population in order to be elected, while the prefects’ public pronouncements reflected an awareness of the accountability of their actions. The elected Prefecture Council appeared to dynamically contest space and authority as a new centre of local power, which threatened that of Members of Parliament in the region. Many Muslims expressed confidence in and gave solid support to the prefect of Rhodope and the mayor of Komotini (both Christians), both of whom have been re-elected with a predominantly Muslim vote for a second term.

For instance, such individuals from the minority disclosed the pressures they faced to conform to the politics of ethnic Turkish nationalism propagated by the leadership segment that grew out of the independents’ movement. Those failing to display loyalty to the ‘motherland’ were stigmatized as “friends of the Greeks” (ελληνόφιλοι) and/or feared retribution through deprivation of certain rights or privileges they had in Turkey. In a parallel fashion, elected officials among Christians who worked closely with the minority were accused as ‘traitors’ to the Greek nation. For example, the prefect of Rhodope and the mayor of Komotini at the time were both often chastised in the local and national press for being a “friend of the Turks” (τουρκόφιλος).

The European context within which regional reforms took place appeared to provide alternative normative frames that legitimated resistance to the aforementioned pressures to nationalize prefecture local government, instead of rendering it merely a channel for the pursuit of existing ethnic interests. As a multi-national entity lacking a hegemonic culture but professing a strong commitment to equal citizenship, the EU offered symbolic and ideological resources, to which elected individuals among both Christians and Muslims in Thrace appealed, in order to assert the legitimacy of their actions vis-a-vis intra-communal pressures. In stark contrast to the recent past, the language the prefecture and regional authorities used was about legal equality, civil rights and cultural diversity, evident in the frequent invocations of “legal equality – equal citizenship,” rather than an appeal to national unity. For the minority that has vehemently claimed its Turkish identity, the prospect of simultaneously integrating into the structures of Greek and European citizenship seemed to be viewed less as a force of assimilation and more as a defense against it. Minority members increasingly viewed the EU as an external system providing alternative protection and support, which the regional reforms and institutions brought closer, ensuring the irreversibility of the changes and preventing Greece from 'turning the clock back to the old system'.

The elected leaders of the minority emerging from the Prefecture Council and several activists among the minority’s professionals adopted a more pragmatic and moderate approach, focused on dealing with specific problems through the new local government structures. The pressures facing them to conform to the politics of ethnic Turkish nationalism were strong, yet, apparently less effective in eliciting consistence and conformity than in the past. Even though most of them retained close ties with the Turkish consulate in Komotini, they also displayed growing interest in the minority’s socioeconomic development and a willingness to work within the new institutions as alternative avenues to represent and redress their community’s grievances.

What the critical views towards the independents seemed to put into question was the ability of a politics essentially developing under the auspices of the Turkish state to respond effectively to the minority’s problems in Thrace. They also reconsidered the traditional nationalist assumption that political solidarity with one’s co-ethnics and unity with the kin state can guarantee true autonomy for the individual and the community. One of the minority’s lawyers stated that the independents “spoiled the very notion of the independent”, being only nominally “independent” while in practice being subordinate to an external power and to a politics that did not originate from within the community

The slow and powerfully contested processes of decentralization that the EU cohesion policy has effectuated in Greece over the past ten years have been in part constrained by national identity as such. At the same time, they also manifest significant, albeit indirect and continuously contested shifts in the latter. These go hand in hand with considerable tendencies and processes underway towards the autonomization of local politics from central administration and government. The latest wave of territorial reform in 1998, the “Kapodistrias Plan” lies along the same continuum of change and is reported to strengthen such processes of decentralization. This reform initiated a massive reconstitution, merging fragmented local governments units into larger entities capable of assuming greater responsibilities and a more active role in local government. Through its regional dimension and political orientation, the EU appears to provide a limited but guaranteed degree of autonomy and citizenship, while its sheer pluralism appears to render unlikely a centrally directed hegemonic culture.