Kostas Karamanlis

Kostas Karamanlis   (politician)
Born	Κωνσταντίνος Αλεξάνδρου Καραμανλής 14 September 1956 Athens, Greece
Nationality	Greek
Alma mater	University of Athens, Deree College, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Religion	Greek Orthodoxy
Children	Alexandros Aliki
Spouse	Natasa Pazaïti
Party	New Democracy
Attended the 1998 Bilderberg as Greece's Leader of the Opposition  Prime Minister of Greece  In office 10 March 2004 - 6 October 2009 Succeeded by George Papandreou  Greece/Minister for Culture In office 10 March 2004 - 15 February 2006  Leader of New Democracy In office 21 March 1997 - 30 November 2009 Succeeded by Andonis Samaras  Greece/Leader of the Opposition  In office 21 March 1997 - 10 March 2004 Succeeded by George Papandreou  Member of the Hellenic Parliament In office 18 June 1989 - Present

Konstantinos A. Karamanlis, commonly known as Kostas Karamanlis, is a Greek politician who was the 10th Prime Minister of Greece from 2004 to 2009. He was also president of the centre-right New Democracy party, founded by his uncle Konstantinos Karamanlis, from 1997 to 2009.

He attended the 1998 Bilderberg meeting as as Greece's Leader of the Opposition.

Karamanlis was first elected as a member of the Hellenic Parliament for New Democracy in 1989 and became president of the party in 1997. After leading the opposition in the Hellenic Parliament for seven years and his narrow defeat in the 2000 parliamentary election, he served as the 181st Prime Minister of Greece for two consecutive terms, winning the 2004 election, with an all-time record number of votes, and again in 2007. However, he asked for mid-term general elections in 2009, as his party enjoyed a narrow parliamentary majority that could not guarantee a stable government needed to handle the Greek financial crisis. Eventually, Karamanlis was defeated and resigned as president of New Democracy after twelve years as the party's leader, being active in politics though as a member of the parliament.

After he left office, many in Greece continued to blame the New Democracy governments of Karamanlis for economic difficulties.

As Prime Minister

In March 2004, while PASOK was still in government, Eurostat refused to validate the fiscal data transmitted by the Greek government and asked for a revision, as it had done previously -twice- in 2002, then resulting in a revision which changed the government balance from a surplus to a deficit.

A worse blow came in May 2004, when the European Commission harshly accused Greece of "imprudent" and "sloppy" fiscal policies, pointing out that since Greek economic growth had been an annual 4% in 2000–2003, a declining fiscal position could only be the result of government mismanagement, including concerns by the EU regarding the 103% public debt to GDP ratio which Karamanlis inherited from the previous PASOK regime. With this report, the Commission effectively called into question the quality of Greek economic data, as Eurostat had done in March.

The New Democracy government under Karamanlis, elected on April of that year, decided to conduct a Financial Audit of the Greek economy, before sending revised data to Eurostat. The audit concluded that the PASOK administration and prime minister Costas Simitis had falsified Greece's macroeconomic statistics, on the basis of which the European institutions accepted Greece to join the Eurozone. PASOK contested the accusations and claimed that 2006 Eurostat changes to the system of defense expenditure calculation legitimized the practices of the Costas Simitis government. New Democracy responded that the defense expenditures covered by those changes constituted only a small part of much more substantial expenditures that were fraudulently concealed by the previous PASOK government.

Rising unemployment and the threat of inflation undermined Karamanlis' promises to kick-start the economy and sparked strikes, especially one in 2006 by rubbish collectors, causing severe disruption in the economy – particularly the one in July 2005 at the height of the tourist season.

Phone tapping

In early 2006, it was revealed that the cellular phone of Costas Karamanlis, as well as those of several other members of the government and officials of the armed forces, had been tapped for several months during and after the 2004 Athens Olympics. The investigation into this matter by the Greek organization for communications privacy was closed with the argument that if this investigation would carry on, the information revealed would be dangerous for the national security of Greece.

Kidnapping

A group of Pakistani men were abducted by Greek and British intelligence agents in the wake of the 7 July 2005 London bombings. The governments of Greece, Pakistan, and Britain have denied accusations that they were involved in the alleged detention of 28 Pakistanis for several days in Athens and Ioannina after the 7 July bombings in London. The prosecutor assigned to the case said he had no evidence of who committed the abductions. [1] [2] [3] [4]

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1998	14 May 1998	17 May 1998	Scotland Turnberry	The 46th Bilderberg meeting, held in Scotland, chaired by Peter Carrington

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References

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