Karolos Papoulias

Karolos Papoulias (2009)

Karolos Papoulias ( Greek Κάρολος Παπούλιας ; born June 4, 1929 in Ioannina ; † December 26, 2021 ) was a Greek lawyer and politician . He was President of Greece from March 13, 2005 to March 13, 2015 .

Life

In 1943, at the age of fourteen, he joined the partisans of the Greek People's Liberation Army who fought against the Italian occupation regime and the German Wehrmacht in his northern Greek homeland, Epirus , near the border with Albania . He studied law at the University of Athens . During the dictatorship in Greece (1967–1974) Papoulias found asylum in Germany , from where he worked for the Greek program of Deutsche Welle committed against the military regime in his homeland. Here he continued his studies at the University of Cologne continued and was subsequently named Karl Papulias at Gerhard cone doctorate ; the topic of his dissertation is Acquisition and Loss of Direct Property in Greek and German Law .

After the fall of the dictatorship, he was one of the founders of the PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) . He maintained a close friendship with its long-time chairman, Andreas Papandreou . Since 1977 he has been repeatedly elected to parliament in his constituency of Ioannina (except in the 2004 elections, in which he was exactly 17 votes short). From 1981 to 1984 he was State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry, from 1984 to 1985 Deputy Foreign Minister. 1985 to 1989 and 1993 to 1996 he himself held the office of foreign minister . In between, 1989 to 1990, he was Deputy Minister of Defense.

During his last term as foreign minister, Papoulias signed the “Treaty of Friendship on Cooperation, Good Neighborhood and Security” (March 21-22, 1996) with Albania .

President

In 2005 he was proposed by Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis ( Nea Dimokratia ) in coordination with the largest opposition party PASOK for the office of President. With the largest majority in the history of the presidential elections in Greece, with 279 of a total of 296 votes in the Greek parliament, the then 76-year-old politician, who was the only candidate in the election, was elected the country's sixth president. He thus succeeded Konstantinos Stefanopoulos . Papoulias received the votes of both major parties in parliament.

The outgoing President Stefanopoulos described his successor as an "excellent politician". Papoulias was sworn in on March 12, 2005, one day after the end of Stefanopoulos' term of office.

With the election of Papoulias , a socialist was elected to the highest office in Greece for the first time since 1974, when the office of president was created after the end of the dictatorship . After the official announcement by the President of the Parliament Anna Psarouda-Benaki , Papoulias accepted the result of the vote with “feeling great responsibility” and thanked him warmly for the “great honor”. "Honesty, political maturity, moderation and insight" he emphasized as the most important and necessary virtues for public life in order to build a more just and less selfish Greek society.

On February 3, 2010 Papoulias was re-elected for a second term - again with a large majority (266 of 300 votes). The swearing-in took place again on March 12th.

After the Greek sovereign debt crisis became known (autumn 2009) and the European agenda was largely determined ( euro rescue package 2010, EFSF from June 2010), Papoulias was more in the spotlight than before. In view of the dramatic financial situation, he announced that he would be giving up his salary indefinitely (according to the Greek Ministry of Finance, around 85,000 euros annually). There is even no reliable information about the height of the president's salary: "According to calculations by Bloomberg, which were based on government documents, Papoulias receives 300,000 euros a year."; Elsewhere it is said that the "Greek President waived his salary of 283,000 euros" in order to support the Greek austerity efforts within the framework of the EU bailout fund.

Papoulias was married to May Panou Papoulia, who, after studying psychology at the University of Cologne, worked at the University's Department of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy from 1987 until her retirement in 2001. The couple's three daughters, Fanny (historian), Vicky (social worker) and Anna (photographer), continue to live in Germany.

On February 18, 2015, Prokopis Pavlopoulos was elected as the new President and took office on March 13, whereby Papoulias also resigned.

Web links

Commons : Karolos Papoulias  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography on the side of the Greek President (English)
• “The beach under the sidewalk” , essay by Karolos Papoulias on the 1968 movement , Frankfurter Rundschau from May 31, 2008

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Απεβίωσε ο Κάρολος Παπούλιας , naftemporiki.gr, December 26, 2021
2. ↑ Spiegel-online from February 18, 2015
3. ^ Entry in the German National Library
4. ^ Website of the Greek Embassy ( Memento of May 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
5. ^ "Papoulias re-elected as President" , Der Standard of February 3, 2010.
6. ↑ "Mr. Schäuble insults my country" spiegel.de of February 16, 2012.
7. ↑ Eleni Chrepa: "Greek President Papoulias Slams German 'Insults' as Aid Discussions Stall" bloomberg.com from February 15, 2012.
8. ^ "President of Greece to Give up € 283,000 Salary" , International Business Times, February 15, 2012.
9. ^ Official biography of May Panou Papoulia