Каролос Папулиас: Грекия президенті (2005-2015)

President of Greece from 2005 to 2015

Karolos Papoulias (Κάρολος Παπούλιας ; 4 June 1929 – 26 December 2021) was a Greek politician who served as the president of Greece from 2005 to 2015. A member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), he previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1985 to 1989 and again from 1993 until 1996.

Karolos Papoulias was born in the village of Molyvdoskepastos, Ioannina on 4 June 1929, and was the son of Major General Gregorios Papoulias. He attended primary school in Pogoniani and secondary schools in Pogoniani, Zosimaia School in Ioannina, and in the Paleo Faliro and Pangrati districts of Athens. The Nazi invasion of Greece in April 1941 caught him studying in Pogoniani and Papoulias joined the armed resistance against the Germans. He obtained a law degree from the University of Athens, a master's degree in public international law and international relations from the University of Milan, and a doctorate in private international law from the University of Cologne with a doctoral thesis entitled: "Erwerb und Verlust des unmittelbaren Besitzes im griechishen und deutschen Recht" ("The acquisition and loss of immediate possession in Greek and German law"). Papoulias was active in the left wing EPON youth as a young man.

Papoulias was a founding member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and a close associate of its leader Andreas Papandreou. From December 1974 on he was continually elected to the PASOK Central Committee. He was also member of the Coordination Council, the Executive Bureau and the Political Secretariat, as well as Secretary of the PASOK International Relations Committee from April 1975 to 1985. For a number of years he was also a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Socialist and Progressive Parties of the Mediterranean. In his term between 1993 and 1996 and particularly at the crucial Essen Summit he played an important role in starting accession talks between the Republic of Cyprus and the European Union. He was very interested in relations between Greece and the Balkan states and it was upon his initiative that the first meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Balkans was organized in Belgrade in 1988. There, he began talks with Bulgaria and the then Soviet Union on the Burgas Alexandroupolis oil pipeline. Papoulias was supportive of any step towards détente, peace, and disarmament e. g. the "Initiative of the Six" for peace and disarmament, the participation of Greece in the Conference on Disarmament and Peace in Europe and in the Conference for the Abolition of Chemical Weapons, his proposals to create a nuclear free zone in the Balkans and the promotion of the idea of making the Mediterranean a sea of peace and cooperation. The JANNINA 1 tripartite cooperation conference, between Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania, was his idea and he was a strong supporter of the Black Sea Conference, which he also chaired. With his visit to Washington, D. C. in 1985 and the return visit of Secretary of State George Shultz, he revitalized Greek U. S. relations which had gone through a delicate phase during the previous years. On 8 February 2005, he was elected by 279 of 300 votes to a five year term. He was sworn in as the 6th President of the Third Hellenic Republic on 12 March 2005, succeeding Konstantinos Stephanopoulos. In December 2008, the police killing of a 15 year old protester, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, sparked four days of riots in Athens. Papoulias called for calm to "honor Alexis' memory peacefully". At the inauguration of the Acropolis Museum on 20 June 2009, Papoulias demanded the return of the Elgin Marbles from the United Kingdom, which were torn from the Parthenon by the British, because "it is time to heal the wounds of the monument with the return of the marbles that belong to it".

After securing the support of the two major political parties, Papoulias was re elected to a second and final term on 3 February 2010 with a parliamentary majority of 266 votes. His second term in office was mired in the country's worsening financial crisis and large demonstrations and protests. This resulted in successive changes of government of different political orientations, with the appointment of conservative, socialist, socialist conservative and left wing governments. Following the government's agreement with the International Monetary Fund on 3 May 2010, Papoulias expressed on 5 May that "our country has reached the limit of disaster" after the general strike that day turned violent and in which three bank workers were killed when the offices were set on fire by protesters. On 28 October 2011, Greece's national day, protests occurred throughout the country. In Thessaloniki, protesters managed to prevent the annual military parade from taking place and chanted slogans against Papoulias, calling him, among other things, a "traitor" and he was forced to leave the area. On that day Papoulias' emotional statement is remembered, in which he said that "I became a guerrilla when I was fifteen years old to fight against Nazism". George Papandreou offered Papoulias his resignation as Prime Minister on 5 November 2011 to secure approval of the €130 billion euro bailout deal, and he appointed Lucas Papademos as his caretaker successor on 10 November. Papademos resigned few months after, in April 2012 and asked Papoulias to dissolve the Parliament and call for a snap election, scheduled for 6 May of that year. On 15 February 2012 Papoulias resigned his salary as president. A few months later it was revealed that his salary was not withdrawn, but decreased. After no party won an absolute majority of seats in the May 2012 legislative election, Papoulias called all party leaders to a meeting on 13 May following the terms of section 37 of the constitution, in a final attempt to form a national unity government. After he had met with all represented parties over the course of the day, he decided to call for a second meeting the next day with the PASOK, ND and DIMAR. The talks failed on 15 May, with an early election expected in June. So Papopulias appointed a caretaker cabinet under Council of State president Panagiotis Pikrammenos on 16 May, and the election date set for 17 June. At the same time, Papoulias was told by the head of the Bank of Greece George Provopoulos that local financial institutions were concerned about a bank run with the increased rate of withdrawal of euros, which were up to 700 million. Papoulias stated that "there is, of course, no panic, but there is fear that could develop into panic" acknowledging that Greeks on 14 May had withdrawn 800 million euros from the country's banking system. With the victory of ND leader Antonis Samaras in the elections, Papoulias tasked him to form a government. On 20 June he invested Samaras as the new Prime Minister. The murder of rapper and anti fascist Pavlos Fyssas in September 2013 by a Golden Dawn neo fascist sparked a wave of outrage in Greece and Papoulias stated that "it's my supreme duty as president of the republic to defend democracy and the Greek people from the storm that is approaching" and protect Greeks from neo fascism. In 2014, during an official visit by German President Joachim Gauck Papoulias demanded that talks be scheduled as soon as possible on Greek claims for war reparations for the brutal German occupation during World War II. His presidential term ended in March 2015 and he was replaced by Prokopis Pavlopoulos, who was elected Greece's new president in a parliamentary vote in February 2015.

Papoulias was married to Mary Panou and together, they had three daughters. Apart from his native Greek, he also spoke English, French, German, and Italian. The Greek government announced three days of national mourning on December 27–29 with flags down to half mast. His state funeral took place on 29 December at the church of Agios Spyridon in Pagrati and was attended by the country's highest authorities. The following day he was buried on the island of Lake Ioannina.