500 Drachmes Common Market Membership

Greece acceded to the European Economic Community on January 1, 1981, but the negotiations that made it possible were concluded in May 1979 — the occasion this coin was struck to mark. It was the first southern European nation admitted to what had been, to that point, an exclusively northwestern bloc, and the political significance in Athens was considerable given that accession came just five years after the collapse of the military junta.