Vassilis Rapanos ( el, Βασίλης Ράπανος; born 1947) 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 ...

economist.

Early life and education

Rapanos was born on the island of

Kos Kos or Cos (; el, Κως ) is a Greek island, part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese by area, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 36,986 (2021 census), ...

in 1947. He received his bachelor's degree from the

Athens University of Economics and Business Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB; el, Οικονομικό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών, ''Oikonomiko Panepistimio Athinon'', abbrev. ΟΠΑ, OPA) was founded in 1920 in Athens, Greece and is the oldest university in Gre ...

in 1975 and a doctorate from Queen's University at Kingston in 1982.

Early experience

During the

Regime of the Colonels In politics, a regime (also "régime") is the form of government or the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of a government or institution and its interactions with society. According to Yale professor Juan Jo ...

, Rapanos was imprisoned for more than four years for participating in left-wing resistance against the military regime. He is a former economics professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Athens. He also served as financial advisor to then 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 ...

from 2000 to 2004 and to the Greek delegations to the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

and the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

. He was also chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during this period. He also served in the Economy Ministry at the period when Greece joined the euro in 2001. He served as chairman of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization from 1998 to 2000. He was also firstly deputy governor and then governor the National Mortgage Bank of Greece. He worked as a research associate with the Institute of Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) from 2007 to 2009. He has been non-executive chairman of the Hellenic Bank Association and chairman of the board of the National Bank of Greece since 2009. On 16 August 2016, Rapanos was elected

member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

of the Academy of Athens.

Minister of Finance (designate)

Rapanos was offered the position of Finance Minister on 20 June 2012 and was due to replace

Georgios Zanias Georgios P. Zanias ( el, Γιώργος Π. Ζανιάς, , born 16 August 1955 in Orchomenus) was briefly Minister of Finance in Greece from May to July 2012. In June 2012 he was due to be replaced by Vassilis Rapanos. Instead, he was replaced ...

on 23 June 2012. However, because of illness he was rushed to hospital before he could be sworn in and on 25 June 2012 informed the Prime Minister that he would be unable to fully and efficiently exercise the duties of Finance Minister.

Personal life

Rapanos is reported by Greek media to have had a history of health problems, including cancer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rapanos, Vassilis 1947 births 20th-century Greek economists People from Kos Greek government-debt crisis Queen's University at Kingston alumni Living people Athens University of Economics and Business alumni Academic staff of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Members of the Academy of Athens (modern) 21st-century Greek economists