George Papaconstantinou

George Papaconstantinou    ( economist,  politician)
Born	Γιώργος Παπακωνσταντίνου 30 October 1961  Athens,  Greece
Nationality	Greece
Alma mater	•  London School of Economics •  New York University
Spouse	Jacoline Vinke
Criminal convictions	tampering with tax list by removing relatives
Party	Panhellenic Socialist Movement
Relatives	Michalis Papakonstantinou
Greek economist and politician who from 2009 until 2012 as Finance Minister, where he attended 2 Bilderberg meetings. A run-of-the-mill neoliberal politician, he became a scapegoat for the 2010 debt crisis, which was a broader SDS policy.  Greece/Minister of Environment Energy and Climate Change In office 17 June 2011 - 17 May 2012  Greece/Minister/Finance In office 7 October 2009 - 17 June 2011 Preceded by Yannis Papathanasiou Attended both Bilderbergs in this role

Dr Giorgos Papakonstantinou is a Greek economist and politician. From 2009, until 2012 he held the position of Finance Minister, where he attended 2 Bilderberg meetings. A run-of-the-mill neoliberal politician put in the position to create a debt trap for Greece resulting in the 2010 debt crisis, he afterwards became somewhat of a scapegoat for what was a broader SDS policy.

Education

Papakonstantinou studied economics at New York University and the London School of Economics, where he also received his doctorate.

Career

After completing his studies, he worked for 10 years at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. There he dealt with issues of industry and problems of new technologies and wrote studies on the economic policies of the OECD member countries and Greece.

After returning to Greece, in 1998-2000 he was an adviser to Prime Minister Konstantinos Simitis and worked for the Ministry of Economy and Finance. He also represented Greece at the EU Economic Policy Committee, was a member of the 'Council of Wise Men' of the Ministry of Finance and coordinator for the preparation of a "Convergence Charter" of the Greek economy.

During the Greek Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2003, he was the coordinator of the "Lisbon Process", which was supposed to promote economic and social reforms in the EU.

From 2001 to 2007 he taught as a visiting professor at the Faculty of Management of the Athens University of Economics and Business. In 2004, he was economic advisor to the chairman of the then opposition PASOK, Giorgos Papandreou.

In the September 2007 parliamentary election, he became a Member of Parliament for PASOK.

He received a seat in the European Parliament in the 2009 European elections. After the victory of PASOK in the parliamentary elections on October 4, 2009, he gave up this mandate again, as the new Prime Minister Papandreou appointed him to his cabinet as Minister of Finance. On 17 June 2011, following mass protests over the government's austerity measures, Papandreou removed him from this key position (which was important for dealing with the country's financial crisis) and appointed him Minister of the Environment. In 2012, Papakonstantinou was expelled from PASOK.

On 15 July 2013, the Greek Parliament lifted Papakonstantinous’ immunity in order to allow a prosecution for forgery of documents and other offences before a special court. Papakonstantinou was accused of deleting the names of three relatives from the so-called Lagarde list, containing information on the deposits of roughly 2,000 Greek citizens at HSBC bank's Geneva branch, during his time as finance minister in 2010. He denied the allegations and described himself as the victim of a smear campaign. The trial in the special court ended with a guilty verdict and a sentence of one year imprisonment, which was suspended for probation.

Family

Papakonstantinou is the nephew of Michalis Papakonstantinou, a former foreign Minister (1992/93) and politician of the opposition New Democracy. He is married to the Dutch-born travel writer Jacoline Vinke and has two sons.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/2010	3 June 2010	6 June 2010	Spain Hotel Dolce Sitges Barcelona	The 122 guests met in the Hotel Dolce Sitges, Barcelona, Spain.
Bilderberg/2011	9 June 2011	12 June 2011	Switzerland Hotel Suvretta St. Moritz	59th meeting, in Switzerland, 129 guests
Brussels Forum/2013	2013	2013	Belgium Brussels	2013 get-together of huge amount of transatlantic politicians, media and military and corporations, under the auspices of the CIA-close German Marshall Fund.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2011	26 January 2011	30 January 2011	Switzerland WEF	2229 guests in Davos, with the theme: "Shared Norms for the New Reality".

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