Andonis Samaras

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Andonis Samaras, 2012

Andonis Samaras (often also Antonis Samaras ; Greek Αντώνης Σαμαράς , born May 23, 1951 in Athens ) is a Greek politician . Between 2009 and July 2015 he was chairman of the conservative party Nea Dimokratia (ND). From June 20, 2012 to January 26, 2015 he was Prime Minister of Greece .

Life

The son of a Greek cardiologist graduated from Amherst College, USA, with a degree in economics , which he completed in 1976 with an MBA from Harvard University . He is married to Georgia Kritou and has two children. He was a member of the Greek parliament from 1977 to 1996 and has been a member of the New Democracy (ND) since 2007.

Political career

Under Prime Minister Tzannis Tzannetakis Samaras was finance minister and from 1990 to 1992 foreign minister in the government of Konstantinos Mitsotakis . He was considered a “falcon” in the dispute over the name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and other national issues in his view and conjured up an “ orthodox axis” in the Balkans .

Because of his uncompromising attitude on the Macedonian question, he was dismissed as Minister in 1992. Mitsotakis, on the other hand, used the name Macedonia of Skopje in public and was open to compromise, provided that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia gave up the demand for recognition of the Macedonian minority in Greece. In 1992 Samaras wrote to the foreign ministers of the European Community that the establishment of the “federal republic of Skopje after 1945 was regarded as the beginning of an annexation of the Macedonian provinces in the neighboring countries Bulgaria and Greece” and that Tito also supported the Greek communists, “because he hoped to gain control over Greek Macedonia ”.

Party formation

Samaras founded his own political party Anixi ( Greek Πολιτική Άνοιξη 'Political Spring') to the right of the Nea Dimokratia. He thus brought about the end of the government of his former mentor Mitsotakis and, after the parliamentary elections of 1993, the return of the opposition party PASOK to power.

The "Political Spring" achieved 4.9% of the vote and ten seats in the Greek parliament in the 1993 parliamentary elections. In the 1994 elections to the European Parliament , he won two seats with 8.7%. Its decline began with the Greek parliamentary elections in 1996 , in which it failed with 2.94% just under the three percent hurdle for entry into parliament. In the European elections in 1999 he also did not win a seat with 2.3%. The "Political Spring" did not participate in the Greek parliamentary elections in 2000 , Samaras publicly supported the New Democracy. This was viewed by many as an attempt at reconciliation to allow his return to that party and continue his political career.

Return to the New Democracy

Samaras at a meeting of the European People's Party (2010)

Before the Greek parliamentary elections in 2004 , Samaras rejoined the Nea Dimokratia and was elected MEP in the 2004 European elections.

In the Greek parliamentary elections in 2007 , Samaras was elected to the Greek parliament for the constituency of Messinia and therefore left the European Parliament . In January 2009 he became Minister of Culture after a government reshuffle until the election in October 2009 . After the election defeat of the Nea Dimokratia he ran - among others against the former Foreign Minister Dora Bakogianni - for the party chairmanship. On November 29, 2009, he was directly elected by party members.

By the PASOK from 2009 to 2011 by Papandreou led government ( Cabinet Giorgos Papandreou ) lost as a result of by the financial crisis required austerity and economic recession soon to support. Samaras long refused to support the austerity and reform measures called for by the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the ECB and called for new elections. The ND only participated to a limited extent in the transitional government of Loukas Papadimos , and provided that new elections were held soon. In the election on May 6, 2012 , the Nea Dimokratia was again the strongest party, although it achieved the worst election result since it was founded with 18.9 percent. The mandate to form a coalition government, which he received as the leader of the strongest parliamentary group from President Karolos Papoulias , he gave back after just a few hours. After the chairs of the second and third strongest power, Alexis Tsipras ( SYRIZA ) and Evangelos Venizelos ( PASOK ), failed to form a government, the parliament dissolved again and thus brought about new elections.

During the election campaign, Samaras received support from German Chancellor Angela Merkel , French President François Hollande , Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and other top European politicians by warning Greek voters that an election victory by Syriza would put the country in the euro zone into question.

Prime Minister of Greece

In the parliamentary election on June 17, 2012 , the ND was again the strongest force with 29.7 percent, compared to the election on May 6, 2012, it increased by 10.8 percentage points. Alexis Tsipras' SYRIZA party, which had spoken out in favor of an end to austerity measures during the election campaign, was again the second strongest party with 26.9 percent. Nevertheless, with ND and PASOK, the two parties achieved a parliamentary majority (162 to 138 seats), who wanted to stick to the austerity course and the implementation of reforms. After ND and PASOK reached an agreement with the Democratic Left to form a government, Samaras was sworn in as Greek Prime Minister on June 20, 2012. One of the main objectives of Samaras was to stretch the timeframe for EU aid loans. Samaras wanted to keep the country, especially in the public sector, on an austerity course and also in the euro zone.

After Samaras ordered the immediate closure of the state broadcaster ERT without consulting his coalition partners , DIMAR left the government. Samaras continued it as a grand coalition with PASOK, whose chairman Evangelos Venizelos entered the government as deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

The first balanced budget for Greece in decades, presented by Samaras on December 7, 2014, was not coordinated with either the Troika or the Eurogroup . The forecasts contradicted the calculations of the donors. In addition, because of the stalled negotiations between the Troika and the Samaras government, the funds agreed in the rescue program were no longer made available in 2014. Although Samaras' coalition government did not have the required majorities, he announced the next day that the presidential election would be brought forward. After his candidate Stavros Dimas did not receive the required share of the vote, an early parliamentary election had to be called. From this the left-wing SYRIZA emerged as the winner under Alexis Tsipras . Samaras resigned as Prime Minister on January 26, 2015.

Opposition politics

After his election defeat in 2015, Samaras found himself again in the role of opposition leader. As in 2009 after taking over the party leadership, he was the strongest critic of the new government. At the beginning of February, in his speech in front of parliament on the government declaration by Prime Minister Tsipras, he accused the latter of having led the country , above all Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis , to new austerity and reform measures, while he himself was in the process of introducing Greece at the end of February to lead out of austerity. He repeated this criticism in a speech to an internal party committee of the Conservatives on March 8, 2015. There he spoke of the fact that he had been in the process of leading the country out of austerity policy this year. Although the criticism of the government was borne by the majority of the party's MPs, there were also increasing voices questioning his leadership role and calling on him to convene an unscheduled party conference. Samaras rejected this demand and said that a party congress would only be necessary if the issue of party leadership was at stake. He himself had already stated at a parliamentary group meeting two days earlier that although he was not married to his post, a leadership question would only benefit the government at this point in time if the strongest party in the opposition did not present itself as a unit. Not all group members shared this view. While MPs like Kyriakos Mitsotakis or Makis Voridis stood behind Samaras, it was above all Dora Bakogianni and Nikos Dendias who continued to insist on a party congress that was supposed to redefine the future direction of the party and to discuss the role of Samaras.

As a result of the no victory in the referendum on July 5, 2015, Samaras announced his resignation as party chairman.

literature

Web links

Commons : Antonis Samaras  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lt. the Greek Wikipedia he shared a room in a dormitory with his later socialist counterpart in parliament, Prime Minister Giorgos Andrea Papandreou : "… όπου συγκατοικούσε με τον Γιώργο Παπανδρέου".
  2. ↑ Dangerous swaying . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 1993, pp. 103-104 ( online ).
  3. ↑ a b Nikolaos Zahariadis: Ambiguity and choice in public policy: political decision making in modern democracies . Georgetown University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-87840-135-2 , pp. 102, 108, 112, 113 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Focus v. September 6, 1993: Last hot duel
  5. ↑ Greece newspaper of November 30, 2009 ( Memento of July 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Zacharias Zacharakis: Government education: the reckless power calculus of the Greek left . In: Die Zeit , May 8, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2012. 
  7. ↑ Parliamentary election: Conservatives in Greece fail to form a government . In: Die Zeit , May 7, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2012. 
  8. ↑ Spiegel from May 19, 2012: "Euro finance ministers threaten Greece with expulsion from the monetary union"
  9. ↑ T-online.de of May 19, 2012: "Economist Franz warns Greeks against leaving the euro"
  10. ↑ Focus from June 3, 2012: "Westerwelle warns Greeks against populists"
  11. ↑ Focus of June 9th, 2012: Schäuble warns Greeks "There is no easy way"
  12. ↑ ARD from June 14, 2012: "Hollande warns Greeks against no to austerity"
  13. ↑ Welt from June 15, 2012: "Brüderle threatens Greeks with expulsion from the euro"
  14. ↑ Reuters of June 16, 2012: "Juncker warns Greeks against leaving the euro"
  15. ↑ N-TV of June 17, 2012: "EU politicians warn Greeks"
  16. ↑ June 17, 2012: "CSU openly threatens Greece with euro expulsion"
  17. ↑ A guest article by Georgios Delastik, Athens: Greece before the election of Europe's hysterical blackmail attempts , Spiegel online, accessed June 16, 2012
  18. ^ Coalition talks in Greece: "The country must have a government by tomorrow evening" , SZ Online, accessed on June 18, 2012
  19. ↑ Three-party coalition: Samaras sworn in as Greek Prime Minister at faz.net, June 20, 2012 (accessed June 20, 2012)
  20. ↑ zeit.de: Samaras is the new Prime Minister of Greece. - He led a cabinet of conservatives and technocrats - his coalition partners did not have any ministers.
  21. ↑ zeit.de June 20, 2012: Whoever wins has already lost
  22. ^ Greece: Samaras promises even tougher austerity measures. In: Zeit Online. July 6, 2012, accessed July 7, 2012 .
  23. ↑ Greek Prime Minister asks believers for more time. In: sueddeutsche.de. July 7, 2012, accessed March 27, 2018 .
  24. ↑ Welt from June 25, 2013: "Venizelos reused as the new Foreign Minister"
  25. ↑ Greece: Budget adopted , Deutsche Welle, December 8, 2014.
  26. ^ Presidential election in Greece is preferred , Deutsche Welle, December 9, 2014.
  27. ^ Cabinet list government of Samara (Greek); Presidential Decree 21, FEK 18 Α / 26-1-2015, January 26, 2015
  28. ↑ The topic of party leadership is over , To Vima , March 8, 2015 (Greek)
  29. ↑ Focus, July 6, 2015
predecessor Office successor
Panagiotis Pikrammenos Prime Minister of Greece
2012–2015 		Alexis Tsipras
personal data
SURNAME Samaras, Andonis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Samaras, Antonis; Samaras, Antōnēs; Σαμαράς, Αντώνης (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek politician, MEP, Prime Minister of Greece
DATE OF BIRTH May 23, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Athens