Karolos Papoulias was born in the village ofMolyvdoskepastos,[3]Ioannina on 4 June 1929,[4] and was the son ofMajor General Gregorios Papoulias.[5][6] He attended primary school inPogoniani and secondary schools in Pogoniani,Zosimaia School in Ioannina, and in thePaleo Faliro andPangrati districts of Athens. TheNazi invasion of Greece in April 1941 caught him studying in Pogoniani and Papoulias joined the armed resistance against the Germans.[7] He obtained a law degree from theUniversity of Athens, amaster's degree inpublic international law andinternational relations from theUniversity of Milan, and a doctorate inprivate international law from theUniversity of Cologne with a doctoral thesis entitled: "Erwerb und Verlust des unmittelbaren Besitzes im griechishen und deutschen Recht" ("The acquisition and loss of immediate possession in Greek and German law").[3] He was inWest Germany at the time of the1967 coup d'état and Papoulias headed the organization of the Democratic Socialist Union Abroad, which was responsible for mobilizing Greek workers, students and scientists in Europe against the new junta of the Colonels.[7] He also founded the first trade union organization of the resistance and collaborated with the German broadcasterDeutsche Welle.[7]
Papoulias was an associate of the Munich Institute for Southeast Europe.[7] A onetimepole vault national champion andnational volleyball team player,[7] Papoulias was chairman of the National Sports Association.[7] He was also a founding member and president of the Association for the Greek Linguistic Heritage.[8]
Papoulias was active in the left-wingEPON youth as a young man.[9]
Role in PASOK, parliamentary, and government offices
Papoulias was a founding member of thePanhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and a close associate of its leaderAndreas Papandreou. From December 1974 on he was continually elected to the PASOK Central Committee. He was also member of the Coordination Council, the Executive Bureau and the Political Secretariat, as well as Secretary of the PASOK International Relations Committee from April 1975 to 1985. For a number of years he was also a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Socialist and Progressive Parties of the Mediterranean.[8]
He was first elected to the Greek Parliament in 1977 forIoannina,[3] and held his seat continuously through the subsequent legislative elections until his 2004 election as President of the Republic.[8] UnderAndreas Papandreou government, Papoulias was deputyMinister for Foreign Affairs, from 1981 to 1985, and from 1985 to 1989 and from 1993 to 1996, Minister of Foreign Affairs.[7] During theecumenical government ofXenophon Zolotas he served as deputy minister of National Defense between 1989 and 1990.[7] DuringCostas Simitis' first ministerial term, he was for several years, from 1998 to 2004, president of the Permanent Committee of National Defense and Foreign Affairs.[7]
Minister for Foreign Affairs: 1985–1989, 1993–1996
In the 1980s, Papoulias played a key role in trying to reach a solution to theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict. He mediated a safe departure of trapped Palestinian militants andYasser Arafat fromLebanon aboard Greek vessels in 1983.[7] He created diplomatic relations with theArab world and achieved the normalization of relations between Greece andEgypt and the establishment of tripartite cooperation betweenIran,Armenia, and Greece.[7] He held talks with a total of 12Turkish Foreign Ministers to normalizeGreco-Turkish relations.[7] This resulted in the signing of the Papoulias-Yılmaz memorandum in 1988.[10]
In his term between 1993 and 1996 and particularly at the crucial Essen Summit he played an important role in starting accession talks between theRepublic of Cyprus and the European Union.[10]
As president-in-office of the European Union and member of the contact group for theformer Yugoslavia he worked to bring about a resolution of the crisis inBosnia and Herzegovina. He signed theInterim Agreement with the Former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia, aiming at the establishment of better relations between that nation and Greece.[12]
He was responsible for the signing of the protocol of mutual civil and military assistance with Bulgaria in the 1980s. He restored friendly and neighbourly relations withAlbania by ending the state of war between that country and Greece.[13]
Papoulias was supportive of any step towards détente, peace, and disarmament e.g. the "Initiative of the Six" for peace and disarmament, the participation of Greece in the Conference on Disarmament and Peace inEurope and in the Conference for the Abolition of Chemical Weapons, his proposals to create anuclear-free zone in theBalkans and the promotion of the idea of making theMediterranean a sea of peace and cooperation. The JANNINA 1 tripartite cooperation conference, between Greece,Bulgaria, andRomania, was his idea and he was a strong supporter of the Black Sea Conference, which he also chaired.[14]
With his visit toWashington, D.C. in 1985 and the return visit ofSecretary of StateGeorge Shultz, he revitalized Greek-U.S. relations which had gone through a delicate phase during the previous years.[12]
On 12 December 2004, Prime MinisterKostas Karamanlis, leader of the governingNew Democracy party, andGeorge Papandreou, leader of the PASOK opposition, nominated Papoulias for the presidency. That same day Karamanlis made it public in a televised message. In fact, he had already communicated this decision to Papoulias in a phone call on 5 December, as he had been discussing his candidacy with him since the summer. Papoulias won over the other four candidates that PASOK and ND had been negotiating.[15][16] On 8 February 2005, he waselected by 279 of 300 votes to a five-year term.[17] He was sworn in as the 6th President of theThird Hellenic Republic on 12 March 2005, succeedingKonstantinos Stephanopoulos.[18]
In December 2008, the police killing of a 15-year-old protester, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, sparked four days of riots in Athens. Papoulias called for calm to "honor Alexis' memory peacefully".[19]
At the inauguration of theAcropolis Museum on 20 June 2009, Papoulias demanded the return of theElgin Marbles from the United Kingdom, which were torn from theParthenon by the British, because "it is time to heal the wounds of the monument with the return of the marbles that belong to it".[20]
President Karolos Papoulias with Prime MinisterGeorge Papandreou on 5 November 2011Papoulias in a meeting with Papandreou, Samaras andGeorgios Karatzaferis on 10 November 2011.
After securing the support of the two major political parties, Papoulias wasre-elected to a second and final term on 3 February 2010 with a parliamentary majority of 266 votes.[21] His second term in office was mired in the country's worseningfinancial crisis and large demonstrations and protests. This resulted in successive changes of government of different political orientations, with the appointment of conservative, socialist, socialist-conservative and left-wing governments.[22]
Following the government'sagreement with theInternational Monetary Fund on 3 May 2010, Papoulias expressed on 5 May that "our country has reached the limit of disaster" after the general strike that day turned violent and in which three bank workers were killed when the offices were set on fire by protesters.[23][24]
On 28 October 2011, Greece's national day, protests occurred throughout the country. In Thessaloniki, protesters managed to prevent the annual military parade from taking place and chanted slogans against Papoulias, calling him, among other things, a "traitor" and he was forced to leave the area. On that day Papoulias' emotional statement is remembered, in which he said that "I became a guerrilla when I was fifteen years old to fight against Nazism".[25][26]
George Papandreou offered Papoulias his resignation as Prime Minister on 5 November 2011 to secure approval of the €130 billion bailout deal,[27] and he appointedLucas Papademos as his caretaker successor on 10 November.[28] Papademos resigned few months after, in April 2012 and asked Papoulias to dissolve the Parliament and call for a snap election, scheduled for 6 May of that year.[29]
On 15 February 2012 Papoulias resigned his salary as president. A few months later it was revealed that his salary was not withdrawn, but decreased.[23]
That same month, whenWolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, said that Greece should delay its elections and install a technocratic government, Papoulias replied that "we are all obliged to work hard to overcome this crisis, but we cannot accept Mr. Schäuble's insults. Who is Mr. Schäuble to insult Greece? Who are these Dutch? who are these Finns? We have always defended not only the freedom of our country, but the freedom of Europe".[30]
After no party won an absolute majority of seats in theMay 2012 legislative election, Papoulias called all party leaders to a meeting on 13 May following the terms of section 37 of the constitution, in a final attempt to form a national unity government.[31][32] After he had met with all represented parties over the course of the day, he decided to call for a second meeting the next day with the PASOK, ND and DIMAR.[33] The talks failed on 15 May, with an earlyelection expected in June.[34] So Papopulias appointed acaretaker cabinet underCouncil of State presidentPanayiotis Pikrammenos on 16 May, and the election date set for 17 June.[35] At the same time, Papoulias was told by the head of theBank of GreeceGeorge Provopoulos that local financial institutions were concerned about abank run with the increased rate of withdrawal of euros, which were up to 700 million.[36] Papoulias stated that "there is, of course, no panic, but there is fear that could develop into panic" acknowledging that Greeks on 14 May had withdrawn 800 million euros from the country's banking system.[37]
With the victory of ND leaderAntonis Samaras in the elections, Papoulias tasked him to form a government.[38] On 20 June he invested Samaras as the new Prime Minister.[39]
The murder of rapper and anti-fascistPavlos Fyssas in September 2013 by aGolden Dawn neo-fascist sparked a wave of outrage in Greece and Papoulias stated that "it's my supreme duty as president of the republic to defend democracy and the Greek people from the storm that is approaching" and protect Greeks from neo-fascism.[40] In 2014, during an official visit by German PresidentJoachim Gauck Papoulias demanded that talks be scheduled as soon as possible on Greek claims for war reparations for the brutal German occupation during World War II.[41]
His presidential term ended in March 2015 and he was replaced byProkopis Pavlopoulos, who was elected Greece's new president in a parliamentary vote in February 2015.[42]
Papoulias was married to Mary Panou and together, they had three daughters. Apart from his nativeGreek, he also spokeEnglish,German,French as well asItalian fluently.[8]
He died on 26 December 2021 inAthens at the age of 92.[43][10] The Greek government announced three days of national mourning on December 27–29 with flags down to half-mast.[44][45] His state funeral took place on 29 December at the church of Agios Spyridon in Pagrati and was attended by the country's highest authorities.[46] The following day he was buried on theisland ofLake Ioannina.[47]
^"Opinion: A new era for Athens".DW.COM. 6 July 2015. Retrieved19 January 2021.Karolos Papoulias was president of Greece from 2005 to 2015. He also served two terms as Minister for Foreign Affairs.
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