Alekos Papadopoulos (born,1949,

Thesprotia Thesprotia (; el, Θεσπρωτία, ) is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the Epirus region. Its capital and largest town is Igoumenitsa. Thesprotia is named after the Thesprotians, an ancient Greek tribe that inhabited the ...

) is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

lawyer and politician of the

Panhellenic Socialist Movement The Panhellenic Socialist Movement ( el, Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα, Panellínio Sosialistikó Kínima, ), known mostly by its acronym PASOK, (; , ) is a social-democratic political party in Greece. Until 2012, it ...

(PASOK). He is a former Member of Parliament and was a minister three different times.

Political career

Between 1989 and 2004 he was a Member of the

Hellenic Parliament The Hellenic Parliament ( el, Ελληνικό Κοινοβούλιο, Elliniko Kinovoulio; formally titled el, Βουλή των Ελλήνων, Voulí ton Ellínon, Boule (ancient Greece), Boule of the Greeks, Hellenes, label=none), also kno ...

for

representing the

(PASOK). In 1994 Papadopoulos assumed as Minister of Economics. During his tenure he oversaw the structural adjustments which Greece had to undertake to enter the

European Economic and Monetary Union The economic and monetary union (EMU) of the European Union is a group of policies aimed at converging the economies of member states of the European Union at three stages. There are three stages of the EMU, each of which consists of progr ...

. He initiated major reforms in the taxation of companies and also in the education of future civil servants establishing a School of Economics associated with the Ministry of Economics. From September 1996 onwards until February 1999 he acted as the Minister for Internal Affairs, Public Administration and Decentralization. As such, he implemented several reforms, most notably the “

Kapodistrias plan Kapodistrias reform ( el, Σχέδιο Καποδίστριας, "Kapodistrias Plan") is the common name of law 2539 of Greece, which reorganised the country's administrative divisions. The law, named after 19th-century Greek statesman Ioannis Kapod ...

", restructuring Greece in new administrative regions. In February 1999 he was forced to resign over accusations to have collaborated with

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

in the capture of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...

(PKK). In April 2000 he was appointed

Minister of Health A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental health. Coun ...

. In June 2002, he announced that he would not present himself as a candidate in the upcoming elections, but still mentioned he would implement the reforms he had initiated. This caused some frictions within the PASOK party specially with Prime Minister

Costas Simitis Konstantinos G. Simitis ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Γ. Σημίτης; born 23 June 1936), usually referred to as Costas Simitis or Kostas Simitis (Κώστας Σημίτης), is a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece a ...

who was disappointed that such a popular politician would leave his team and dismissed him a few days after. As a former minister he often comments on the political situation or criticizes the financial politics of the Greek government. In 2018, he doubted that Greece would be able to stay within the

Eurozone The euro area, commonly called eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU policies ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Papadopoulos, Alekos Greek politicians 1949 births People from Filiates PASOK politicians Living people