Simitis, Konstantinos (1936–)

Konstantinos Georgiou Simitis (generally known as Costas Simitis) was born in Piraeus, Greece, and studied law and economics in Germany and England. He began his academic career in law at the University of Marburg in 1959. He taught as an assistant professor at the University of Konstanz in 1971 and went on to become a regular professor of commercial and civil law at the University of Giessen. In 1977, he was appointed regular professor at the Panteion University of Athens.

Living in Athens as a lawyer, Simitis played a leading part in the founding of the Association of Political Research, also known as Alexandros Papanastasiou. In 1967, the association evolved into the antidictatorial organization Democratic Defense (Democratiki Amina), which was to participate in the founding of PASOK (the Panhellenic Socialist Movement) 7 years later. Simitis was an active participant in the antidictatorial struggle against the colonels' junta (1967 to 1974) and was sentenced to imprisonment by default. In 1969, he fled abroad and by way of retaliation his wife was arrested and kept in isolation for 2 months. In 1974, he became a founding member of PASOK (Panhellinio Socialistiko Kinima). Immediately after PASOK's electoral victory on October 1981, he was appointed by Andreas Papandreou to minister of agriculture. During this time, he achieved the successful inclusion of Greek agriculture into the European Common Agricultural Policy. He was elected member of Parliament for the first time in 1985, when he took over the ministry of national [Page 746]economy (until 1987). From 1993 to 1995, he was minister of industry, energy, research and technology and was minister of commerce at the same time. On January 1996 he was elected prime minister by the parliamentary group of PASOK, after the resignation of Andreas Papandreou from the office due to health problems. The same year, he emerged from PASOK's fourth convention as the president of the movement and was reelected prime minister after PASOK's victory in September's parliamentary elections with a self-reliant parliamentary majority. In the elections of April 2000, he was reelected prime minister. The 1996 and 2000 electoral campaigns were outmaneuvered by all sorts of broadcast political communications and political marketing strategies (opinion polls, TV spots, debates, talk shows, live coverage of rallies, and so on).

On January 2004, Simitis announced his resignation from the presidency of PASOK, remaining the prime minister until the end of his second term in office and the elections of March 2004, having completed 8 consecutive years as prime minister. Simitis's premiership was characterized by an effort for the overall modernization of Greek society, especially for the stabilization and development of the economy. This policy made Greece achieve inclusion in the Economic Monetary Union in the year 2000, but the effects of Simitis's rule continue to be a central point of confrontation between political parties and among the electorate. Today, after the elections of March 2004, Costas Simitis is a member of Parliament for PASOK. His writings and public discourse include many books and texts of political and scientific interest.

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