This was done purposefully in order to put a break on inflation and inflationary expectations, which in the past were strongly fed by the recurrent devaluations of the drachma, which, sometimes, more than fully accommodated the excessive wage and price rises.
While there was some real appreciation of the drachma, the resulting disequilibrium was not as large as some argued, especially participants in the financial markets. Studies conducted by the Bank of Greece indicated that the real overvaluation of the currency was of the order of 10 percent after taking into account the Balassa-Samuelson effect and a number of other factors.