The new President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, was elected today, February 18, by the Greek Parliament. Pavlopoulos was born in 1950 in Kalamata, Greece, where he finished his school studies. In 1968, he moved to the Greek capital to study at Athens University Law School. He is married with Vlassia Pavlopoulou-Peltsemi and the couple has three children: Vassilis, a lawyer, Maria, a French literature graduate, and Zoe, a kindergarten teacher. In 1974, he was appointed Secretary of the Greek President Michael Stassinopoulos, whom he met when the latter was being held under house arrest during the Military Junta in Greece. One year later, in 1975, he began his studies in University of Paris II (former Sorbonne) after receiving a French government scholarship. He received a postgraduate DEA and in 1977 he was declared a Doctor in Public Law. Pavlopoulos followed an academic career as a Curator (1981), Associate Professor (1982), Assistant Professor (1983), Associate Professor (1986) and Professor (1989) at the Athens University Law School. In 1986, he was elected Visiting Professor at University Paris II in France. During his academic career, he wrote numerous books and articles that have been widely recognized by the scientific community. Political Career In 1996, Pavlopoulos began his long-standing career in politics. He was first elected an MP with New Democracy in the 1996 election. Later, he was reelected with the same party in the first Athens district in the 2000, 2004, 2007, 2009 and 2012 elections. He has served as Alternate Minister for the Presidency and government spokesman in the ecumenical government headed by Xenophon Zolotas (1989-1990), head of the legal office to Greek President Constantine Karamanlis from 1990 to 1995, New Democracy’s Press and Information Spokesman (1995-1997), Parliamentary Spokesman (2000-2004), Minister of Interior, Public Administration and Decentralization (2004-2007) and finally, Minister of the Interior and Public Order (2007-2009). Pavlopoulos has always stood against the unified property tax (ENFIA), claiming it was unconstitutional. “The tax, as it is today, has the same defects that EETIDE (another unpopular tax) used to have. We are prisoners of this system,” he had stated in August 2014.
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