The postwar economic flourishing of Europe - which had to deal with an enormous lack of manpower in its effort of reconstruction - led after 1956 mainly rural strata that faced financial inactivity, to turn to mass emigration in quest of a better fortune. After the supply of American aid was over, the importation of foreign capital in every possible way in order to boost the local, insufficient business activity was considered a cure-all, which would lead the country to an industrialization track.

However, despite the benefits (tax exemptions etc.) granted to foreign capitalists, the total of foreign investments in Greece until 1960 was rather low. The accession of Greece to NATO in 1952, as the Cold War was escalating, institutionalized the American control on the foreign policy front and determined the relations of Greece with its neighbouring countries, using criteria often opposite to its internal necessities. The Greek military participation in the Korean campaign (1950) stressed this particular orientation.

At the same time, the declaration of the anti-colonist struggle in Cyprus against British occupation (1955) set off a large number of mass and dynamic social reactions in Greece in favour of the union with the ‘Ethniko Kentro’ (National Centre). What characterized that period was the discrepancy between Greek leaderships that were closely dependent on the British and the Americans and the constantly increasing anti-British movement expressed through a series of militant demonstrations and protests throughout the 1950s and the ’60s. In 1958, England, Turkey and Greece reached agreement in Zurich, thus sealing all negotiations concerning the Cyprus problem. Moreover, this agreement determined the course of the issue itself, as well as that of relevant discussions for decades.