Nikolaos Kotzias
Νικόλαος Κοτζιάς
Minister for Foreign Affairs
In office 23 September 2015 – 20 October 2018
Prime Minister	Alexis Tsipras
Preceded by	Petros Molyviatis
Succeeded by	Alexis Tsipras(Acting)
In office 27 January 2015 – 28 August 2015
Prime Minister	Alexis Tsipras
Preceded by	Evangelos Venizelos
Succeeded by	Petros Molyviatis
Personal details
Born	(1950-12-21)21 December 1950 (age 74)[1] Athens,Greece
Political party	Syriza[2]
Alma mater	University of Giessen
Website	Official website

Nikolaos Kotzias,GCM (Greek:Νικόλαος Κοτζιάς; born 21 December 1950^[1]) is aGreek politician and diplomat who served asMinister for Foreign Affairs from 2015 to 2018.

He was Foreign Minister from 23 September 2015 until his resignation on 17 October 2018;^[3] previously he held the same post from 27 January to 28 August 2015. Nominated bySYRIZA, he was sworn in as a member of theCabinet of Prime MinisterAlexis Tsipras in January 2015.

Kotzias studied economics (Diploma) and Political Science and Philosophy (MA) in Athens and Law and Politics of European Integration (PhD and Post-doc) at theUniversity of Giessen in Germany. According to his online biography worked as a researcher and taught at the Universities ofMarburg, Oxford and Cambridge and he holds from 2008 on the position of Professor of Political Theories and International and European Studies at theUniversity of Piraeus.^[4] He has specialized in issues of policy and political systems, societies and foreign policy ofBrazil,India andRussia. He has been a member of many globally recognized international research teams on contemporary issues.^[4][5]

In addition to numerous other publications, he wrote 24 scientific books, published the German philosopher in the tradition ofcritical theoryJürgen Habermas in Greece and also released a collection of poems^[6]

Kotzias was active as a student in theLambrakis Democratic Youth and during theright-wingmilitary dictatorship in Greece was a member of theCommunist Youth of Greece. He was a secretary of the Federation of Greek Fraternities in Germany as well as the coordination point of the anti-dictatorship student organizations^{[citation needed]}. Later he was a member of the Central Committee of theCommunist Party of Greece and was repeatedly condemned by military courts. During his years in the Greek Communist Party, he became the party's ideological instructor.^[7] He was often praised for his masterful rhetoric and his profound knowledge ofMarxist philosophy.^[8] During the 1980s, he praised the Polish government'scrackdown on theSolidarity movement.^[9]

Kotzias broke with the Communist Party after the majority's decision to co-ally with the conservatives in order to bringPrime MinisterAndreas Papandreou to trial for corruption. Along with other party members, he characterized that decision as an "unholy alliance" and declared their resignation which subsequently led to the creation of a new leftist group.

He is a founding member ofNikos Poulantzas leftistthink tank, which was named after a Franco-Greek, Marxist oriented sociologist and political philosopher.^[10]

From 1993 to 2008, he was in the diplomatic service in theMinistry of Foreign Affairs, with the rank of ambassador beginning in 2005. As a chief diplomat, he was involved in negotiations on theAmsterdam Treaty,Agenda 2000, theGreek-Turkish relations and theEuropean Constitution.

Kotzias played an important role during the "spring" of the Greek-Turkish relations in 1999, implementing the"earthquake diplomacy" at the time when the two countries were struck by catastrophic earthquakes.^[11] He has supported the Greek-Turkish rapprochement as a new policy doctrine and introduced theconfidence-building measures (CBMs).^[12]

He was also the Greek representative in the 2002 Helsinki agreement which regulated Turkey's candidacy status for EU membership and paved the way forCyprus' accession in 2004.^[10]

In September 2012, Kotzias founded the progressive and democratic political movement namedPratto, whose purpose is "to form a radical, patriotic, democratic and social movement, advocating the interests of the country, the Greek people, the workers and the Greek natural environment".^[13] CurrentMinister of Public Order and Citizen Protection and MPNikos Toskas is also a founding member ofPratto.

In one of his interviews inSpiegel Online on 9 February 2015 he noted that he is an atheist.^[14]

He speaks Greek, German as native and fluent English.

Since January 2015 Kotzias is Foreign Minister in a cabinet in coalition withIndependent Greeks, a right wing conservative party that also opposesausterity.

Nikos Kotzias is an advocate of a multidimensional, energetic and democratic attitude towards foreign policy. He supports the view that even a relatively small state, in terms of economic power, can take advantage of the changes that occur in a global context and increase its capacities to allow it to exercise an autonomous foreign policy according to the national interest. Supporting the view that the world has already begun to move towards multipolarity, Kotzias believes that states that wish to increase their influence and capacities should seek to forge concrete relations with theemerging powers (BRICS).

In one of his latest books "The Colony of Debt", Nikos Kotzias claims that the European Union is developing empire characteristics, as it perceives markets, the bureaucracy in Brussels andGermany as focal elements of its structure. In this way, he argues, the EU is rendering in a two-tier region of a rich North and poor South.^[11]

On 27 January 2015, Nikos Kotzias was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs, despite not being a member ofparliament. During the ceremony of the handing of the ministry, Kotzias gave a notion of his political approach stating: "We look forward to bridges with the new emerging world. We do not see our membership in European institutions as conflictual to our relations with emerging powers."^[15]

In the same night of Kotzias's appointment, the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement, issuing Greece's unwillingness to agree to key passage of statement, delaying agreement for further EUsanctions againstRussia-backed separatists in Ukraine, before the extraordinary meeting of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers, which was scheduled on 29 January 2015 in Brussels. The new minister argued that "certain of our partners attempted to present us with a fait accomplis before the new government had even been sworn". He also underlined that Greece "would not relinquish its sovereignty and active contribution to European policy as this would be an act that circumvents a vital principle ofEuropeanism."^[16]

The 29 January meeting resulted to an improved and softened version of the statement, extending the ongoing sanctions but avoiding to include further measures, mainly due to the position that the Greek minister held.Federica Mogherini, the European Union'sHigh Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, stated that Kotzias's "attitude was extremely constructive" during the meeting and that "this was an extremely positive exercise" which led to "a consensual and substantial decision."^[17]

After the announcement for early legislative elections on 20 September 2015, Nikos Kotzias was nominated as a candidate on SYRIZA national ballots after the agreement of Pratto to co-ally with SYRIZA, and he was elected as a member of theGreek Parliament.

On 23 September 2015, after the formation of a coalition government between SYRIZA and Independent Greeks, Kotzias was appointed asMinister of Foreign Affairs for a second time, succeeding the caretaker ministerPetros Molyviatis.

On 17 October 2018 Kotzias submitted his resignation, a day after a cabinet meeting during which he clashed over thePrespa agreement with Defense MinisterPanos Kammenos, who has opposed the deal. He was succeeded by then PMAlexis Tsipras.^[3]

• Poland and Ourselves. Synchroni Epochi (1981)
• Globalization, The historical place and the future. Kastaniotis Publications (2003)ISBN 978-960-03-3505-7
• The active democratic State. Nation State and Globalization (co-written with Petros Liacouras) Kastaniotis Publications (2004)ISBN 960-03-3646-6
• EU–US Relations: Repairing the Transatlantic Rift. (ed. with Petros Liacouras) Palgrave Macmillan (2006)ISBN 1-4039-3520-3
• Beyond high politics: Promise and limits of rapprochement. In: Anastasakis et al.:In the Long Shadow of Europe: Greeks and Turks in the Era of Postnationalism, Brill, 2009,ISBN 978-90-04-17112-1
• Greek Foreign Policy on the 21st Century. For a new, active, democratic strategy in the era of Globalisation Kastaniotis publications (2010)ISBN 978-960-03-5077-7
• The Rescue politics against Troika and the democratic Greece Livanis Publications (2012)ISBN 978-960-14-2488-0
• Greece, a Debt Colony. European Empire and German Primacy Patakis publications (2013)ISBN 978-960-16-4966-5
• Patriotism and the Left Patakis Publications (2014)ISBN 978-960-16-6066-0^[18]

Kotzias has been awarded the following foreign orders:

• Grand Cross of theOrder of Merit (Portugal) - 30 January 2017^[19][20]

• List of foreign ministers in 2017
• List of current foreign ministers

Wikimedia Commons has media related toNikos Kotzias.

• Personal blog ofNikos Kotzias(in Greek)
• Biography at theGreek foreign ministry website
• Biography at theUniversity of Piraeus website
• CV andoffice terms ofNikos Kotzias at theHellenic Parliament(in English)

• 1950 births
• Foreign ministers of Greece
• Greek political philosophers
• Greek MPs 2015–2019
• Independent politicians in Greece
• Living people
• Greek Marxists
• Members of the Lambrakis Democratic Youth
• Syriza politicians
• Diplomats from Athens
• 21st-century Greek diplomats
• University of Giessen alumni
• Academic staff of the University of Piraeus
• Politicians from Athens
• 21st-century Greek politicians

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• CS1 Greek-language sources (el)
• CS1 uses Greek-language script (el)
• CS1 Portuguese-language sources (pt)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from January 2015
• Articles containing Greek-language text
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from January 2015
• Commons category link from Wikidata
• Articles with Greek-language sources (el)