Konstantinos Karamanlis - Legacy

Legacy

His nephew Kostas Karamanlis later became the leader of the New Democracy party (Nea Demokratia) and Prime Minister of Greece from 2004 to 2009.

Karamanlis has been praised for presiding over an early period of fast economic growth for Greece (1955–63) and for being the primary engineer of Greece's successful bid for membership in the European Union.

His supporters came to laud him as the charismatic Ethnarches (National Leader). Some of his left-wing opponents have accused him of condoning rightist "para-statal" groups, whose members undertook Via kai Notheia (Violence and Corruption), i.e., fraud during the electoral contests between ERE and Papandreou's Center Union party, and were responsible for the assassination of Gregoris Lambrakis. Some of Karmanlis's conservative opponents have criticized his socialist economic policies during the 1970s, which included the nationalization of Olympic Airways and Emporiki Bank and the creation of a large public sector. Karamanlis has also been criticized by Ange S. Vlachos for indecisiveness in his management of the Cyprus crisis in 1974 even though it is widely acknowledged that he skillfully avoided an all out war with Turkey during that time.

Karamanlis is acknowledged for his successful restoration of Democracy during metapolitefsi and the repair of the two great national schisms by first legalising the communist party and by establishing the system of presidential democracy in Greece. His successful prosecution of the junta during the junta trials and the heavy sentences imposed on the junta principals also sent a message to the army that the era of immunity from constitutional transgressions by the military was over. Karamanlis' policy of European integration is also acknowledged to have ended the paternalistic relation between Greece and the United States.