Kostas Karamanlis
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| Kostas Alexandrou Karamanlis Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Αλεξάνδρου Καραμανλής |
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| Assumed office March 10, 2004 |
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| Preceded by | Costas Simitis |
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| Succeeded by | Incumbent |
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| Born | September 14, 1956 (age 50)  Athens, Greece |
| Political party |  New Democracy |
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Konstantínos Alexandrou Karamanlís (Κωνσταντίνος Αλεξάνδρου Καραμανλής, in Greek; generally known as Costas Caramanlis, Costas Karamanlis, or Kóstas Karamanlís, born September 14, 1956) became Prime Minister of Greece on March 10, 2004 following his party's victory in the March 7 parliamentary elections. He is the leader of the conservative New Democracy party.
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[edit] Political career
Karamanlis - a nephew of the former President of the Hellenic Republic Constantine Karamanlis - was born in Athens and studied at University of Athens's Law School and at the private Deree College, continuing with postgraduate studies in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the United States, where he gained a master's degree and a doctorate in political sciences, international relations and diplomatic history.
Karamanlis was a member of New Democracy's youth wing - ONNED - and served in ONNED's and New Democracy's organisational and ideological sectors from 1974 to 1979 and from 1984 to 1989. He also practised law between 1984 and 1989 and taught political science, diplomatic history and business law at Deree College. He is the author of the book Eleftherios Venizelos and Foreign Relations of Greece, 1928-32, concerning the Greek figurehead politician Eleftherios Venizelos. He has also edited and prefaced various historical publications.
Karamanlis was elected a New Democracy deputy for Thessaloniki in 1989, but in 2004 he was elected for Larissa. He was elected party leader in 1997 following New Democracy's defeat in the 1996 election. He defeated the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) at the 2000 electionsby a landslide.
Karamanlis is the youngest ever Greek Prime Minister, and the first born after World War II. He married doctor Natasa Pazaïti in 1998 and they have two children (a boy and a girl who are twins), born in 2003.
[edit] Prime Ministerial Career
Helped by the unpopularity of the PASOK government (a party that had been in power between 1981-1989 and from 1993 to 2004),led by Costas Simitis, ND defeated the Socialists' George Andreas Papandreou. Caramanlis stated that the priorities were education, economic policy, agricultural policy, lowering the large level of unemployment (standing at 11.2%) and a more transparent and effective state administration. Economic policy centered on tax cuts, investment incentives and market deregulation. While early problems included a large public debt (about 112% of GDP) and a budget deficit (5.3% of the GDP) in excess of Eurozone stability rules, Karamanlis's government had halved the budget deficit to 2,6% by 2006 [1].
Another key issue was the 2004 Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Athens; several key buildings were unfinished at the time of the election, the security budget had increased to €970 million and authorities announced that a roof would no longer be constructed over the main swimming venue. The main Olympic Stadium, the designated facility for the opening and closing ceremonies, was completed only two months before the games opened, with the sliding over of a futuristic glass roof designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Other facilities, such as the streetcar line linking the city and the airport were largely unfinished just two months before the games. The subsequent pace of preparation, however, made the rush to finish the Athens venues one of the tightest in Olympics history and everything was finished just on time for the Opening Ceremony. At the end, the Games were held exactly as planned and were globally hailed as a spectacular success. None the less and as a result of the delays, large cost overruns resulted in a deficit in the national accounts above EU stipulations. [2]. The ND government and the previous administration of Costas Simitis criticized each other for the messy preparations. PASOK criticized the New Democracy government of having used the Olympics as a pretext to renege on promises. Under the weight of the huge costs (estimated 7bn euro), the deficit shot up to 5.3%. Caramanlis declared that "Social policy was done with borrowed cash, military spending did not show up on the budget, debts were created in secret" [3]
[edit] Financial Audit of 2004
In March 2004, while PASOK was still in government, Eurostat refused to validate the fiscal data transmitted by the Greek government and asked for a revision, as it had done previously -twice- in 2002, then resulting in a revision which changed the government balance from a surplus to a deficit.
A worse blow came in May 2004, when the European Commission harshly accused Greece of "imprudent" and "sloppy" fiscal policies [4], pointing out that since Greek economic growth had been an annual 4% in 2000-2003, a declining fiscal position could only be the result of government mismanagement. With this report, the Commission effectively called into question the quality of Greek economic data, as the Eurostat had done in March.
The New Democracy government under Karamanlis, elected on April of that year, decided to conduct a Financial Audit of the Greek economy, before sending revised data to Eurostat. The audit concluded that the PASOK administration and prime minister Costas Simitis had falsified Greece's macroeconomic statistics, on the basis of which the European institutions accepted Greece to join the Eurozone. PASOK contested the accusations and claimed that 2006 Eurostat changes to the system of defense expenditure calculation [5] legitimized the practices of the Costas Simitis government. New Democracy responded that the defense expenditures covered by those changes constituted only a small part of much more substantial expenditures that were fraudulently concealed by the previous PASOK government.
Rising unemployment and the threat of inflation undermined Caramanlis' promises to kick-start the economy and sparked strikes [6] [7] [8] [9], especially one in 2006 by rubbish collectors [10], causing severe disruption in the economy - particularly the one in July 2005 at the height of the tourist season.
In early 2006, it was revealed that the cellular phone of Costas Karamanlis, as well as those of several other members of the government and officials of the armed forces, had been tapped for several months during and after the 2004 Athens Olympics. [11]. The investigation into this matter by the greek organization for communications privacy is closed with the argument that if this investigation would carry on, the information revealed would be dangerous for the national security of Greece.
The government has undertaken a 216 billion euro program to bolster broadband internet connectivity in provincial Greece, which was approved by the European Commission in 2006 with the commendation that it constituted "the most ambitious broadband development program that any EU member has ever undertaken" [12].
In matters of social policy, Karamanlis's government has followed a largely liberal policy. In the spring of 2006, the Ministry of Education repealed a law continuously standing from 1936 (including 20 years of socialist rule), which required approval by the local Christian Orthodox Metropolitan for the building of non-orthodox religious group temples [13].
At the outset of the year, prime minister Kostas Karamanlis announced the initiative of his government for a new amendement of the Constitution. According to his assertion one of the central issues of this amendment is going to be the allowal of private universities to operate in Greece, on a non-profit basis. Greece has for years experienced a mass exodus of "educational immigrants" to other countries' Higher Education institutions, where they move to study; this creates a chronic problem for Greece, in terms of loss of capital as well as human resources, since many of those students opt to seek employment in the countries they studied, after getting their degrees (it is characteristic Greece is by far the leading country in the world in terms of students abroad as a percentage of the general population, with 5.250 students per million, compared to second Malaysia's 1780 students per million inhabitants). Proponents of non-state owned Universities claim that the State's constitutionally mandated monopoly on Higher Education is responsible for these problems.
Attempted changes in Greek Higher Education have encountered the fierce opposition of the opposition parties, as well as that of a sizeable part of the academic community, both professors and students. An attempt to pass several changes concerning the operation of Greek Universities resulted in large scale demonstrations and, finally, the closure of most institutions by protesting students in the summer of 2006. The semester's exam period was lost and postponed for the fall, while the government reneged on the changes and claimed that no bill would be put to parliamentary vote, before a more extensive dialogue has been held with students.
According to a recent poll, Caramanlis is preferred as prime minister by 48% of the Greek public ([14]).
[edit] Structural reform
Karamanlis was elected on the promise to pursue much needed structural reform to the Greek economy and Greek state, as advised by the IMF following their review of the Economy of Greece in 2000. The New Democracy Government has since pursued a policy of structural reform in keeping with supply side economic theory. The labour market has been liberalized, especially in the large and, what some call a bloated civil service and Karamanlis has repeatedly stated that he will not give in to Labour union demands regarding pay rises. Inflation has since been brought under control and is expected to shrink below 3% in 2007. A policy of privatization has also been pursued, most notably with the state run OTE telecommunications company, which was privatized by an act of Parliament on the 15th of December 2006.
Economic growth has been steady throughout Karamanlis' time in office, frequently exceeding 4% in quarterly figures. The Greek banking sector has also grown, extending it's reach into the Balkans and Turkey. However, reforms have been plagued by repeated industrial action, particularly in the education sector, a key part of Karamanlis' reform plans.
[edit] Karamanlis' first cabinet, March 10, 2004–
- Kostas Karamanlis – Prime Minister
- Aristotelis Pavlidis – Minister for the Aegean and Island Policy
- Kostas Karamanlis – Minister for Culture
- Dimitris Sioufas – Minister for Development
- Georgios Alogoskoufis – Minister for Economy and Finance
- Panos Panagiotopoulos – Minister for Employment and Social Protection
- Georgios Souflias – Minister for the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works
- Petros Molyviatis – Minister for Foreign Affairs
- Dimitris Avramopoulos – Minister for Health and Social Solidarity
- Prokopis Pavlopoulos – Minister for the Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation
- Anastasios Papaligouras – Minister for Justice
- Nikos Tsiartsionis – Minister for Macedonia–Thrace
- Manolis Kefalogiannis – Minister for Mercantile Marine
- Spilios Spiliotopoulos – Minister for National Defence
- Marietta Giannakou – Minister for National Education and Religious Affairs
- Georgios Voulgarakis – Minister for Public Order
- Savvas Tsitouridis – Minister for Rural Development and Food
- Dimitrios Avramopoulos – Minister for Tourism
- Michael Liapis – Minister for Transport and Communications
Changes
- September 23, 2004 – Savvas Tsitouridis resigns and is replaced by Evangelos Basiakos as Minister for Rural Development and Food.
- February 15, 2006 – First cabinet reshuffle. Georgios Voulgarakis changes to become Minister for Culture, Savvas Tsitouridis returns to the cabinet as Minister for Employment and Social Protection, Dora Bakoyannis enters the cabinet as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos switches to Minister for Health and Social Solidarity, Georgios Kalantzis becomes Minister for Macedonia–Thrace, Vangelis Meimarakis joins the cabinet as Minister for National Defence, Byron Polydoras enters the cabinet as Minister for Public Order and Fani Palli-Petralia joins the cabinet as Minister for Tourism.
| Preceded by Costas Simitis |
Prime Minister of Greece 2004 – present |
Incumbent |
| Preceded by Evangelos Venizelos |
Minister for Culture 2004–2006 |
Succeeded by Georgios Voulgarakis |
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- (Greek)/(English)/(French)/(German) Prime Minister's website
- (Greek) New Democracy website
- (English) Karamanlis on the Charlie Rose Show (video from September 16, 2005)
- Kostas Karamanlis at CIDOB bio. (Spanish)
