After
World War II, Karamanlis quickly rose through the ranks of Greek politics. His rise was strongly supported by fellow party-member and close friend Lambros Eftaxias, who served as
Minister for Agriculture under the premiership of
Konstantinos Tsaldaris. Karamanlis's first cabinet position was
Minister for Labour in 1947 under the same administration. In 1951, along with most prominent members of the People's Party, Karamanlis joined the
Greek Rally of
Alexandros Papagos. When this party won the
Greek parliamentary election on 16 November 1952, Karamanlis became
Minister of Public Works in the Papagos administration. He won the admiration of
the US Embassy for the efficiency with which he built road infrastructure and administered American aid programs. When Papagos died after a brief illness (October 1955), King
Paul of Greece appointed the 48-year-old Karamanlis as prime minister. In 1959 he announced a five-year plan (1959–64) for the
Greek economy, emphasizing improvement of agricultural and industrial production, heavy investment on infrastructure and the promotion of tourism, setting the bases of the post-WWII
Greek economic miracle, though implementation was disrupted by the
1967 Coup d'état and the 7 years of dictatorship that followed.
London-Zürich Agreements and Turkish PM
Menderes (centre) during conversations in Zurich On the international front, Karamanlis abandoned the government's previous strategic goal for
enosis (the unification of
Greece and
Cyprus) in favour of independence for Cyprus. In 1958, his government engaged in negotiations with the United Kingdom and
Turkey, which culminated in the
Zurich Agreement as a basis for a deal on the independence of Cyprus. In February 1959 the plan was ratified in London by the Cypriot leader
Makarios III.
Merten affair Max Merten was
Kriegsverwaltungsrat (military administration counselor) of the
Nazi German occupation forces in
Thessaloniki. He was convicted in Greece and sentenced to a 25-year term as a
war criminal in 1959. On 3 November of that year, Merten benefited from an amnesty for
war criminals, and was set free and extradited to the
Federal Republic of Germany, after political and economic pressure from West Germany (which, at the time, hosted thousands of Greek
Gastarbeiter). Merten's arrest also enraged
Queen Frederica, a woman with German ties, who wondered whether "this is the way mister
district attorney understands the development of German and Greek relations". In Germany, Merten was eventually acquitted from all charges due to "lack of evidence." On 28 September 1960 German newspapers Hamburger Echo and
Der Spiegel published excerpts of Merten's deposition to the German authorities where Merten claimed that Karamanlis, the then
Minister for the Interior, Takos Makris and his wife, Doxoula (whom he described as Karamanlis's niece) along with then Deputy Minister of Defense
Georgios Themelis were informers in Thessaloniki during the Nazi occupation of Greece. Merten alleged that Karamanlis and Makris were rewarded for their services with a business in Thessaloniki which belonged to a Greek Jew sent to the
Auschwitz concentration camp. He also alleged that he had pressured Karamanlis and Makris to grant amnesty and release him from prison. Karamanlis rejected the claims as unsubstantiated and absurd, and accused Merten of attempting to extort money from him prior to making the statements. The West German government (
Third Adenauer cabinet) also decried the accusations as
calumniatory and libelous. Karamanlis accused the opposition party of instigating a smear campaign against him. Although Karamanlis never pressed charges against Merten, charges were pressed in Greece against
Der Spiegel by Takos and Doxoula Makris and Themelis, and the magazine was found guilty of slander in 1963. Merten did not appear to testify during the Greek court proceedings. The Merten Affair remained at the centre of political discussions until early 1961. Merten's accusations against Karamanlis were never corroborated in a court of law. Historian Giannis Katris, an ardent critic of Karamanlis, argued in 1971 that Karamanlis should have resigned the premiership and pressed charges against Merten as a private individual in German courts, in order to fully clear his name. Nonetheless, Katris rejects the accusations as "unsubstantiated" and "obviously fallacious". He personally lobbied European leaders, such as Germany's
Konrad Adenauer and France's
Charles de Gaulle followed by two years of intense negotiations with
Brussels. His intense lobbying bore fruit and on 9 July 1961 his government and the Europeans signed the protocols of Greece's
Treaty of Association with the European Economic Community (EEC). The signing ceremony in Athens was attended by top government delegations from the six-member bloc of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands, a precursor of the
European Union. Economy Minister Aristidis Protopapadakis and Foreign Minister
Evangelos Averoff were also present. Soon after returning to Greece during
metapolitefsi Karamanlis reactivated his push for the country's full EEC membership in 1975 citing political and economic reasons. Karamanlis was convinced that Greece's membership in the EEC would ensure political stability in a nation having just undergone a transition from dictatorship to Democracy. (1962) In May 1979 he signed the full treaty of accession. Greece became the tenth member of the EEC on 1 January 1981 three years earlier than the original protocol envisioned and despite the freezing of the treaty of accession during the junta (1967–1974). == Crises and self-exile ==