THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE HELLENIC REPUBLIC TO PAY AN OFFICIAL VISIT TO MALTA

The Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, His Excellency Mr Costas Simitis, will be paying an official visit to Malta between Thursday, 24 May and Friday, 25 May 2001. During his visit, Prime Minister Simitis will have official talks with the Prime Minister, followed by a joint Press Conference at the Auberge de Castille.

The Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic is also scheduled to call on The President and meet the Leader of the Opposition.

Prime Minister Simitis will be accompanied by Mrs Simitis. A number of cultural visits are included in their programme.

Their CV's follow:

HIS EXCELLENCY MR COSTAS SIMITIS, PRIME MINISTER OF THE HELLENIC REPUBLIC

Costas Simitis was born in Athens on June 23, 1936.  Both his parents were active in the Resistance during the World War II occupation.  He is married to Daphne, n'?e Arkadiou.  They have two daughters:  Fiona, a painter and Marilena, a political scientist.

Academic career

He studied Law and Economics in Germany and in England.  He was awarded the Doctor Juris (Ph.D.) degree by the University of Marburg in 1959 and engaged in post-doctoral studies at the London School of Economics between 1961 and 1963.  He was Reader in Law at the University of Konstanz (Germany) during 1971 and Professor of Commercial Law and Civil Law at the Justus Liebig University (Giessen) between 1971 and 1975.  He was appointed Professor of Commercial Law at the Panteion University of Political and Social Sciences (Athens) in 1977.  In the course of his academic career he has written extensively in Greek, German and English.

Political career

In 1965 he co-founded the “Alexandros Papanastasiou Society”, a society for research and studies on politics, the members of which subsequently formed the nucleus of “Democratic Defence”, an underground group engaged in subversive activity against the military regime.  In 1969 an arrest warrant was issued against him forcing him to escape to Germany.  He was summoned by the military government to stand trail in a court-martial.  In reprisal, his wife was arrested and kept in solitary confinement for two months.

Between 1969 and 1974 he actively continued to oppose the junta from Germany.  In 1970 he joined the resistance organisation PAK (Panhellenic Liberation Movement), as a member of its National Council.

After the restoration of democracy in 1974, Costas Simitis became a founding member of PASOK (the Panhellenic Socialist Movement).  He participated in the drafting of the founding declaration and was a member of the first Executive Bureau of the new party.

In the first PASOK government in 1981 he was appointed Minister of Agriculture and supervised the integration of Greek farming in the Common Agricultural Policy.  He held this position until 1985, when he was elected Member of Parliament for the port city of Piraeus, a post to which he has been re-elected in every successive election ever since.  In the same year he was appointed Minister of National Economy and, until his resignation in 1987, he presided over the implementation of the economic stabilisation programme, which had beneficial effects on all macroeconomic indicators.  He assumed office as Minister of Industry and Commerce in 1993 and promoted a policy for industrial development based on competitiveness, upgrading of the economic infrastructure, and consumer protection.  He resigned from this position in 1995.

On January 18, 1996, following the resignation of Andreas Papandreou for heath reasons, Costas Simitis was elected Prime Minister by the Parliamentary Group of PASOK.  On June 30, 1996, the 4^th PASOK Congress elected him President of PASOK.  The elections of September 22, 1996 returned a PASOK majority and Costas Simitis was mandated to form a government.  As President of PASOK he also won the next elections of April 9, 2000.  On June 19, 2000, he signed the treaty for the accession of Greece to the Economic and Monetary Union, which was the result of the consistent economic policy followed in the last few years.

Costas Simitis is the author of legal monographs in German (on consumer protection as a legal principle) and in Greek (on the law of patents), as well as of numerous articles in Greek, German and English.  since 1979 he has published some ten books of political thought and argumentation on socialist issues (among which: ‘The Structural Opposition', 1979, ‘Policy for Economic Stabilisation', 1989, ‘Nationalistic populism or national strategy?', 1992, ‘Towards a vigorous society, towards a vigorous Greece', 1995).

He speaks German, English and French.

DAPHNE SIMITIS

Daphne Simitis, father's name Arkadios, was born in Athens.  She met Costas Simitis at the London School of Economics where he had been studying Economics and she Social Psychology. They got married in 1964.  She participated in the ‘Papanastasiou Group', a political group founded in 1964, and was involved with the problems of the country in the pre-dictatorship time.  In 1967 dictatorship was imposed on Greece.  During the dictatorship period she was imprisoned in reprisal for the resistance action of Costas Simitis who fled to Germany.  She had her passport taken away.  In 1969 she fled with her daughters and met her husband in Konstanz, Germany.  During the four years of her stay in Germany, she took up German Literature.

They returned to Greece in 1975.  She worked at her husband's legal firm, trademark section, for two years.

In 1981, at the Ministry of Agriculture, she organised 25 model libraries for children/adolescents in 25 towns of the country.

She has been actively involved in her husband's political activity.  She was lastly engaged in her husband's political office in Piraeus, Mr Simitis's constituency.

She has two daughters.  Fiona holds a B.A. in History of Art, from Reading University, England; Marilena holds a B.A. in Political Science, University of Athens, and a Master by Columbia University, USA, and is currently elaborating her doctoral thesis in Political Science at the London School of Economics, England.