south europe

Southern europe
- in historical and scholarly literature the re is a southeastern europe
- there has never been any consolidated use of the term southwestern europe
- generally tended to be associated with territories south of alps (ie italy) rather than south of pyrennes (ie spain and portugal). The latter have not been associated rather with the iberian peninsula.
- term "midi de l'europe"  coined by sismondi in 1813
- classical german geography - according to hans-dietrich schultz, sudeuropa consisted of pireaenhalbinseln, alpenhalbinseln and balkanhalbinseln. Then evolved to iberian, italian, and balkan peninsulas. (land-oriented rather than sea-oriented approach)
- british perspectives strongly oriented toward the literary-travel sphere and anglo-italian historical links
- categorization important to italy considering the mediterranean balance of power and ultimately the role of futre italian nation-state; and also foreshadowing italian imperialism in later eras. In interwar italy there was no concepttualisation of any southern europe.
- southern europe emerged, quite literally, with the cold war - a natural consequence of redefinition of interests following the collapse of fascist dream in sept1943 --> percentages agreement

• greece left to western allies, separate from its historical hinterland
• the rest under soviet control
• note - churchchill said to stalin "let us settle about our affairs in the balkans. Your armies are in rumania and bulgaria"

- truman was very reluctant to agree to include italy in the first wave of nato members (it was neither northern nor atlantic). France seems to have played a role in supporting italian entry, stressing the mediterranean dimension. Greece and turkey had to wait for the 1st nato enlargement in 1952 to become fully integrated members. This marked the cration of nato's southern flank. By 1955 the divergence of interests of the three pillars of southern flank was manifest after the outbreak of anti-british rebellion in cyprus and anti-greek riots in istanbul in 1955.
- spain and portugal

• spain was kept out of NATO (opposition from some northern european EEC members like netherlands, despite french efforts in that direction); portugal was a marginal player from an economic point of view.  It was historically more connected to great britain than to the emerging western european entities. 

- in the aftermath of suez debacle of 1956 which marked a downsizing of french ambition as a european power, France took the crucial decision to go ahead with plans for the creation of EEC.  This was the moment when there was a decisive shift from a trans-mediterranean framework to a neo-carolingian one.  Thus a franco-german hegemony was rapidly and irreversibily defined, starting from the adminstrative practice of the EEC.  Italy and spain emerged as significant players on the european scene, but southern europe never emerged as a category for analyzing the region.
- a conceptualization of southern europe emerged in early 1990s on the basis of the flowering of economic history in post-franco spain.
- southern european welfare model debate (1990s)

• discussed by social scientists in turkey

- varieties of capitalism were also debated after 1990s
- sudden reemergence of the term of PIGS in 2009 appeared to retrospectively justify a conceptualization of southern europe, brushing aside the ambiguity inherent in the term "latin" (inappropriate for greeks, as heirs to hellenic civilisation).  In fact, the gradual decoupling of portugal, italy and spain from the most serious aspects of the greek crisis deflated the prospect of a negative south european identity.


Prespa (Greek: Πρέσπα, Macedonian: Преспа, Albanian: Prespa) is a region shared between Greece, Albania, and the Republic of Macedonia.^[1] It shares the same name with the two Prespa lakes which are situated in the middle of the region. The largest town is Resen with 9,000 inhabitants.The Prespa lakes are two freshwater lakes in southeast Europe, shared by Albania, Greece, and the Republic of Macedonia. Of the total surface area, 176.3 km² (68.07 sq mi) belongs to the Republic of Macedonia, 46.3 km² (17.88 sq mi) to Albania and 36.4 km² (14.05 sq mi) to Greece. They are the highest tectonic lakes in the Balkans, standing at an elevation of 853 m (2,798 ft). The Great Prespa Lake (Albanian: Liqeni i Prespës, Greek: Μεγάλη Πρέσπα, Megáli Préspa, Macedonian: Преспанско Езеро, Prespansko Ezero) is divided between Albania, Greece and Macedonia. The Small Prespa Lake (Greek: Μικρή Πρέσπα, Mikri Prespa; Albanian: Prespa e Vogël) is shared only between Greece (138 km² (53.28 sq mi) drainage area; 42.5 km² (16.41 sq mi) surface area) and Albania (51 km²(19.69 sq mi) drainage area; 4.3 km² (1.66 sq mi) surface area). The area contains three National Parks located in Albania (Prespa National Park), Greece, and the Republic of Macedonia respectively. 
- In the 10th century, the Tsar Samuil built the fortress and church of St. Achillius on an island called Agios Achillios in the Small Prespa Lake, on the Greek side of the border. The biggest island in the Great Prespa Lake, on Macedonia's side, is called Golem Grad ("Large Town"), and Snake Island (Zmiski Ostrov). The other island Mal Grad (Small Town, in Albania) is the site of a ruined 14th century monastery dedicated to St. Peter. Today, both islands are uninhabited. Because Great Prespa Lake sits about 150m above Lake Ohrid, which lies only about 10 km (6.21 mi) (6 miles) to the west, its waters run through underground channels in the karst and emerge from springs which feed streams running into Lake Ohrid. For many years, the Greek part of the Prespa Lakes region was an underpopulated, military sensitive area which required special permission for outsiders to visit. It saw fierce fighting during the Greek Civil War and much of the local population subsequently emigrated to escape endemic poverty and political strife. The region remained little developed until the 1970s, when it began to be promoted as a tourist destination. With an abundance of rare fauna and flora, the area was declared a Transnational Park in 2000. In 1999 the Society for the Protection of Prespa received the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award for its conservation efforts regarding the Lake Prespa Ramsar site, and was eventually included on 3 July 2013. In 2018, Great Prespa Lake was the setting for the signing of the Prespa Agreement, intended to resolve the Macedonia naming dispute by renaming the Republic of Macedonia to North Macedonia.^[5]. The agreement was signed on 17 June 2018 in a high-level ceremony at the Greek border village of Psarades on the lake, by the two foreign ministers Nikola Dimitrov ( Macedonia) and Nikos Kotzias (of Greece) and in the presence of the respective prime ministers, Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras.^[6] After the ceremony, Tsipras and Zaev crossed over the border to the Macedonian side of the lake for lunch at the village of Oteševo, in a highly symbolic move that marked the first time a Greek Prime Minister ever entered the Republic of Macedonia since it declared independence in 1991.