Michalis Chrysochoidis

Michalis Chrysochoidis

Michalis Chrysochoidis ( Greek Μιχάλης Χρυσοχοΐδης , born October 31, 1955 in Nisi Imathias, today part of the municipality of Alexandria / Imathia ) is a Greek politician. He is a member of the social democratic PASOK party. In the government of Giorgos Andrea Papandreou, he held the post of Minister for Citizens' Protection and became Minister for Economic Affairs in September 2010. In June 2013 he was appointed Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks in the government of Antonis Samaras .

Life

Chrysochoidis studied law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and was elected for the first time as a member of the Greek parliament in 1989. From 1994 to 1996 he was Deputy Minister of Commerce and from 1996 to 1999 Deputy Minister for Development. In February 1999 he became Minister of Public Order in the government of Prime Minister Konstantinos Simitis . He held this office until July 2003.

Since 2003 he has been secretary of the PASOK Central Committee.

After PASOK won the parliamentary elections in 2009 , Prime Minister Giorgos Andrea Papandreou appointed him to head the newly created Ministry of Citizens' Protection, which largely corresponds to the former Ministry of Public Order. In this function Chrysochoidis was confronted above all with the problems of the terrorist attacks by underground groups as well as the violent riots that flared up again and again since the riots in 2008 . He advocated a policy of “zero tolerance” against violence, but also against tax evasion , for which he created a special financial police to combat.

On 23/24 In June 2010 his ministry was attacked with a parcel bomb . It exploded just meters from Chrysochoidis' office, killing a bodyguard . Chrysochoidis said in an interview with FAZ in February 2012: “You want to kill me because my name is linked to the success of Greece in the fight against terrorism, with the smashing of ' November 17th ' and the ' Revolutionary Struggle '. Some have not forgiven me for that. "

During the cabinet reshuffle on September 7, 2010, Papandreou entrusted him with the Ministry of Economic Affairs. At this point in time, a significant recession was becoming noticeable as a result of the drastic measures taken to deal with the Greek financial crisis .

In the interim cabinet of Prime Minister Loukas Papadimos , Chrysochoidis was given the responsibility for development, competitiveness and shipping (Ministry of Economic Affairs) and, from March 8, 2012, again the Ministry for Citizen Protection.

Chrysochoidis commented on the causes of the Greek financial and economic crisis as follows:

“For two decades we have destroyed our production base, our industry and thus our export opportunities. In the first decade of this century, after joining the euro zone, there was also the fact that we were able to borrow money at low interest rates, and we did so in excess. So we became a country of imports. … Over the decades we have moved away from values ​​that we already had. I come from a farming family in Northern Greece,…. From my childhood I remember what were important values ​​for people back then: First, hard work. Everyone who achieved something was proud of it. And many have exported their products. That was then lost as a result of European subsidies. ... While we took EU money with one hand, we did not invest it in new and competitive technologies with the other. Everything went into consumption. The result was that those who produced something closed their factories and started importing companies because they could earn more. That is the real disaster of this country. ”…“ We have a political system in Greece that has functioned wrongly for years. ”

Web links

• Biography on the personal website (Greek)
• Profile at Eleftherotypia (Greek)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Another riots in Athens . Tagesspiegel, December 8, 2009
2. ^ Rambos against tax evaders . ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Handelsblatt, December 14, 2009 
3. ↑ Letter bomb in the ministry kills security chief . Der Standard, June 25, 2010.
4. ↑ ^{a b} faz.net February 2012