Giorgos A. Papandreou

Giorgos Papandreou (2011)

Giorgos A. Papandreou ( Greek Γιώργος Α. Παπανδρέου , actually Georgios Γεώργιος, born June 16, 1952 in St. Paul , Minnesota ) is a Greek politician . He was Foreign Minister of Greece from February 1999 to 2004 ( Cabinet Simitis II and III ). From February 2004 to March 2012 he was chairman of the Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima (PASOK) party. In October 2009, following an election victory , he replaced the previous incumbent Kostas Karamanlis as Prime Minister of Greece and was also Foreign Minister until September 2010. On November 9, 2011, he resigned from his post as Prime Minister. Papandreou has been chairman of the Socialist International since January 2006 .

Life

Papandreou is the grandson of Georgios Papandreou and son of Andreas Papandreou , both former Prime Ministers. He is also the great-grandson of Zygmunt Mineyko , a Polish-Greek engineer and politician. He attended Stockholm University from 1972 to 1973 and Amherst College in the United States from 1975 to 1979, and received a bachelor's degree in sociology . Further studies with a degree in sociology and development have taken place at the London School of Economics and Political Science .

Political career

In 1984 Papandreou was elected to the central committee of the social democratic party PASOK . From 1981 to 1993 Papandreou was a member of parliament for PASOK in the Achaia constituency . He has taken on various functions in the Greek Parliament, including chairing the Parliamentary Committee on Education, the Committee on Culture and Education, and Deputy Chairman of the multi-party committee for public radio in Greece. From 1987 to 1988 he was a member of the Executive Committee of PASOK and since 1990 Secretary of the Greek Diaspora. Papandreou was a member of various political committees of PASOK, such as Secretary of the Committee for Agricultural Cooperatives, Deputy Secretary in the Organizing Committee of PASOK, Member of the Committee on International Relations and Secretary of the Committee on Publications and Seminars.

From 1985 to 1987 he was State Secretary for Cultural Affairs, including responsibility for adult education and youth affairs, from June 1988 to July 1989 he was appointed Minister for Education and Religious Affairs and was at the same time government coordinator for Athens' application for the 1996 Summer Olympics . From 1992 to 1993 he was a fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University , USA.

Konstantinos Simitis appointed him Deputy Foreign Minister of Greece in October 1996 and Foreign Minister in February 1999. He held this office until the parliamentary election in March 2004. Since February 8, 2004, Giorgios Papandreou was chairman of PASOK. As the top candidate in the parliamentary elections on March 7, 2004 , he was unable to build on the term of office of his predecessor as party chairman Kostas Simitis as prime minister. Konstantinos Karamanlis from the liberal-conservative Nea Dimokratia was the winner and the new head of government .

On January 30, 2006, Papandreou was elected President of the Socialist International .

In the parliamentary election on September 16, 2007 he ran again as a candidate for the office of Prime Minister for PASOK against the ruling Konstantinos Karamanlis, but was defeated in this election. After the defeat in the 2007 parliamentary election, Papandreou faced a vote on November 11, 2007 among the members and supporters of PASOK on the party leadership. 974,666 people were eligible to vote for this election. Of these, 769,156 (78.9%) took part. He was confirmed as chairman in the first ballot against two competitors, Evangelos Venizelos and Kostas Skandalidis, with a share of the vote of 55.91%.

Term of office as Prime Minister

Swearing in as Prime Minister on October 6, 2009

Papandreou with cabinet on October 7, 2009

In the parliamentary election on October 4, 2009 , PASOK won the absolute majority of the parliamentary seats with a 43.9 percent share of the vote. Two days later, Papandreou was sworn in as the new Prime Minister. He also took over the Foreign Ministry in his government until September 7, 2010.

The beginning of his term of office was overshadowed by the emerging sovereign debt crisis . In a televised address in early February 2010, Papandreou announced further austerity measures to avoid national bankruptcy . Since then, the Papandreou government has increased taxes in several steps and decided to take drastic austerity measures. On the part of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union (EU) and the European Central Bank (ECB), Greece was given the prospect of a loan package of over 110 billion euros. Several payments from this aid package have been sent to Greece. In mid-June 2011, Papandreou reshuffled his government under the pressure of massive protests. He replaced his finance minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou with the previous defense minister, Evangelos Venizelos , after he was unable to win Loukas Papadimos - economist and vice-president of the European Central Bank ( ECB ) from 2002 to 2010 - for this office.

On June 19, 2011, Papandreou put the vote of confidence in parliament and announced a referendum for the autumn in which the Greek citizens should decide on reforms to “modernize the state” . The vote on the vote of confidence on the night of June 22nd was won by Papandreou's government and the majority of MPs signaled their agreement to new austerity targets from the EU and the IMF . All 155 PASOK MPs voted for the government . 143 parliamentarians voted against; two independent MPs were absent.

A referendum surprisingly announced by Papandreou at the beginning of November on the austerity measures, which were based on the resolutions of the previous Euro Summit in Brussels on aid to Greece (see EFSF ), said Papandreou after massive domestic and foreign policy criticism and then successfully faced another vote of confidence . On November 6, 2011 it was announced that the Greek cabinet would be restructured in the wake of the euro crisis, as a result of which Papandreous is to give up his office. On November 9, 2011, he officially announced his resignation. On November 11, 2011, Loukas Papadimos succeeded him as Prime Minister.

On March 18, 2012, he was replaced by Evangelos Venizelos as chairman of PASOK.

Further political career

After his end at the head of the government and party, Papandreou remained chairman of the Socialist International and also retained his parliamentary mandate after the two elections in 2012 . Otherwise he did not appear politically until the end of 2014. After the presidential election failed on December 29, 2014 and new elections were set for January 25, 2015 , he announced his intention to found a new party on January 2. The party called Kinima Dimokraton Sosialiston (Κίνημα Δημοκρατών Σοσιαλιστών) was founded the following day in the auditorium of the Benaki Museum . However, the new party failed to make the leap over the three percent hurdle. In March 2018, she joined forces with Papandreou's former PASOK party to form Kinima Allagis (KINAL; Movement for Change).

Honor

Papandreou with his wife at the Quadriga Awards

On the Day of German Unity 2010, Papandreou was honored with the Quadriga Prize for his “Power of Truthfulness”. Josef Ackermann gave the laudation .

Web links

Commons : Giorgos Papandreou  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Giorgos Andrea Papandreou  - Quotes

• Website of Giorgios Papandreou

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "A." does not stand for a first or middle name , but is the abbreviation of the patronymic "Andrea"
2. ↑ Papandreou sworn in as the new Prime Minister , in: Der Standard , October 6, 2009 (accessed October 6, 2009).
3. ^ Prime Minister Papandreou also Foreign Minister , in: Der Standard , October 7, 2009
4. ↑ Displeasure in Greece about the austerity program ( Memento from August 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), in: Tagesschau.de , August 28, 2010 (accessed September 20, 2010)
5. ↑ zeit.de November 7, 2011 (Gerd Höhler): [1]
6. ↑ Athens: Papandreou government survives vote of confidence , on: focus.de , June 22, 2011 (accessed June 22, 2011)
7. ↑ Greek Prime Minister resigns from office. SPIEGEL ONLINE, November 6, 2011, accessed November 6, 2011 . 
8. ↑ Papandreou goes online without a successor , November 9, 2011
9. ↑ FAZ.net
10. ↑ website
11. ↑ Quadriga prizes awarded in Berlin: Papandreou promises revolution , swr.de, October 4, 2010.

predecessor	Office	successor
Kostas Karamanlis	Prime Minister of Greece 2009–2011	Loukas Papadimos