Maria Vassilakou

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Maria Vassilakou (2015)

Maria Vassilakou ( Greek Μαρία Βασιλάκου , born February 23, 1969 in Athens ) is an Austrian - Greek urban planner and former politician ( The Greens ). From 2010 to 2019 she was Vienna's Vice Mayor and City Councilor for Urban Development, Transport, Climate Protection, Energy Planning and Citizen Participation .

Life

Childhood and youth

Maria Vassilakou was born the only child of a goldsmith and a building contractor. After graduating from high school in Athens , she came to Vienna in 1986 to study as an interpreter for German, English and French in the Austrian capital from 1988 onwards. In 1990 she began studying linguistics, which she completed in 1994.

Political beginnings

Vassilakou began her political career in Austria at the University of Vienna , when she worked in the social department of the Austrian Students' Union (ÖH) at the University of Vienna from 1991 until two years later she was promoted to the Central Committee of the ÖH. In 1995 she became its general secretary. In the same year she engaged Peter Pilz for the Green Club in Vienna City Hall .

In 1996 she moved into the Vienna City Council for Die Grünen Wien and became integration spokesperson for the Greens. In the 2001 election, she came second on the list. She was then nominated by her party as a (non-executive) city ​​councilor and as such was a (opposition) member of the Vienna City Senate . She also continued to be the integration, security, human rights and disability spokesperson for her party.

Viennese top candidate and vice mayor

Press photo (2005)

In January 2004, Vassilakou was elected to the national executive committee of the Greens, after having been a member of the state executive committee of the Vienna Greens from 1997 to 2001. In Vienna she was elected the top candidate for the 2005 municipal council elections, where the Greens achieved the best election result since the Vienna party was founded, with 14.6 percent and an increase of four seats. The election goal of becoming the second strongest party after the SPÖ , ahead of the ÖVP and FPÖ , was not achieved.

After Madeleine Petrovic's withdrawal , Vassilakou was elected on May 31, 2008, alongside Eva Glawischnig, as the second deputy federal spokeswoman for the Greens.

In October 2009 she was offered by the newly elected Greek Prime Minister Giorgos Andrea Papandreou to become Deputy Greek Environment Minister, which she refused.

For the Viennese State Election, 2010 Vassilakou was another top candidate of their party. The Greens again achieved fourth place with 12.6 percent of the votes cast. Since the Social Democrats missed an absolute majority, the SPÖ was faced with the decision to form a coalition with the ÖVP or with the Greens - the SPÖ rejected a coalition with the FPÖ under Heinz-Christian Strache from the outset - and opted for the Greens.

According to the result of the coalition negotiations, Vassilakou was elected on November 25, 2010 by the local council in the new city ​​senate with 58 out of 100 votes as one of the two vice mayors, alongside Renate Brauner , who remained in office . As the first Green Vice Mayor of Vienna, she took over the newly created department for urban development, transport, climate protection, energy planning and citizen participation.

In addition to her work as Vienna's Vice Mayor and City Councilor for Transport from 2010 to 2015, there was a reduction in the annual ticket for Wiener Linien to 365 euros, the traffic calming on Mariahilfer Strasse , the expansion of the cycle path network and bike safety, and the expansion of parking space management (see " Wiener Parkpickerl ") ) counted.

Before the election in October 2015 , Vassilakou wanted to achieve a "good green result" with a share of 14 to 15 percent of the vote, and announced her resignation in the event of losses. When the Greens lost almost 1% in the municipal council election and one mandate compared to the 2010 election, they no longer wanted to know anything about the earlier announcement and stayed. This caused severe criticism, partly within, but above all outside the party.

In 2017 Vassilakou pushed through the controversial high-rise project on Vienna's Heumarkt together with the SPÖ against the resistance of the grassroots, which had spoken out against the project in a binding vote. Shortly thereafter, the UNESCO put the city of Vienna on the red list of the endangered world heritage due to this project to withdraw the world cultural heritage status , since the historical center of Vienna is losing its "extraordinary, universal value" due to the high-rise.

In September 2018, she announced that she would no longer run in the next Vienna election , probably in 2020. In the subsequent top election for her successor as Vice Mayor and City Councilor in November 2018, Birgit Hebein won it and prevailed against internal party competitors such as David Ellensohn and Peter Kraus .

On June 26, 2019, Birgit Hebein succeeded her as Vice Mayor and City Councilor.

According to politics

Vassilakou announced that he would continue to be active in the field of urban development in the future . She will be available as a consultant for cities in Asia and Africa . In July 2019 it was announced that, as a member of a 15-person mission board for the European research and innovation missions as part of the EU research framework program Horizon Europe, she would define concrete research projects in the field of climate-neutral cities with other experts by the end of 2019.

Private

Vassilakou has both Austrian - since 1996 - and Greek citizenship, as Greece does not release anyone from its state association. Since 1995 she has been married to the qualified linguist and now independent communications consultant Bernd Matouschek.

literature

Web links

Commons : Maria Vassilakou  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Christoph Böhmdorfer, Nikolaus Jilch: Maria in hope . In: date . No. 5 , May 1, 2010 ( online [accessed October 18, 2017]). Online ( Memento from September 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.daten.at  
  2. ↑ Party executive elects Vassilakou as vice-boss . In: The Standard . May 31, 2008
  3. ↑ a b Vassilakou does not become vice minister . In: ORF . October 7, 2009
  4. ^ City Hall correspondence: Constituent meeting of the Vienna City Council (3) . November 25, 2010]
  5. ↑ Vice Mayor Red-Green in Vienna fixed: Vassilakou with super department . In: ORF . November 12, 2010
  6. ↑ Vienna public transport annual ticket for 365 euros from May 2012 . In: The Standard . October 11, 2011
  7. ↑ What was: The red-green meeting zone. In: DiePresse.com. October 2, 2015, accessed October 9, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Vassilakou wants to build 18 kilometers of new cycle paths in Vienna this year. In: derStandard.at. March 8, 2013, accessed October 9, 2015 .
  9. ^ Vassilakou: More free parking spaces with a parking sticker. In: DiePresse.com. October 9, 2013, accessed October 9, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Vassilakou: Resignation in case of election minus . August 27, 2015 ( kurier.at [accessed November 24, 2017]).
  11. ^ Vienna election: Vassilakou: Resignation suddenly no longer an issue . In: www.kleinezeitung.at . October 12, 2015 ( kleinezeitung.at [accessed November 24, 2017]).
  12. ^ Excitement over non-resignation of Vassilakou. October 12, 2015, accessed November 24, 2017 .
  13. ↑ No resignation: SPÖ functionary criticizes Vassilakou . In: The press . October 14, 2015 ( diepresse.com [accessed November 24, 2017]).
  14. ^ Defeat for Vassilakou: Viennese Greens reject the Heumarkt project . In: The press . April 21, 2017 ( online [accessed October 17, 2017]).
  15. ↑ Heumarkt project decided in the local council - wien.ORF.at. June 1, 2017. Retrieved October 17, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Julia Schrenk, Annamaria Bauer: World cultural heritage: UNESCO puts Vienna on the red list because of the Heumarkt decision . In: Courier . July 6, 2017 ( online [accessed October 17, 2017]).
  17. ↑ Vassilakou no longer competes. September 2, 2018, accessed June 26, 2019 .
  18. ↑ ORF at / agencies chvo: Vienna Green in transition. September 2, 2018, accessed June 26, 2019 .
  19. ↑ ORF at / agencies red: Wiener Grüne: Birgit Hebein is the new front woman. November 27, 2018, accessed June 26, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Hebein adheres to coalition with the SPÖ. November 27, 2018, accessed June 26, 2019 .
  21. ↑ wien ORF at / Agencies red: Politics: Hebein elected city councilor. June 26, 2019, accessed June 26, 2019 .
  22. ↑ wien ORF at / agencies red: Politics: Greens: Hebein now also party leader. June 22, 2019, accessed June 26, 2019 .
  23. ↑ wien ORF at / agencies red: Politics: Vassilakou wants to become a consultant. June 12, 2019, accessed June 26, 2019 .
  24. ↑ New job for Maria Vassilakou. July 31, 2019, accessed August 1, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Ivana Martinović: Maria Vassilakou: "Beauty brings you 14 days ahead." . In: beaver . April 2008
  26. ↑ Green pioneer . In: Upper Austrian news . November 3, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Vassilakou, Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Βασιλάκου, Μαρία (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (Die Grünen), member of the state parliament
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1969
PLACE OF BIRTH Athens