A tough-talking law professor with an ambitious streak, 54-year-old Evangelos Venizelos takes over as Greek Finance Minister as the country grapples with the threat of economic collapse.
Recognised as one of Greece’s most brilliant legal minds, Prof. Venizelos is known to relish a challenge after heading a wide array of ministries during an 18-year career in politics, though without a finance portfolio until now.
Never afraid to speak his mind, he raised eyebrows last week with a barb against his predecessor George Papaconstantinou as anger mounted inside the ruling party over the government’s troubled economic policy.
“In a parliamentary system there is collective government responsibility,” Prof. Venizelos had said in his last interview on June 12.
“Naturally, the Prime Minister and Finance Minister who are directly involved in policy have a different measure of responsibility.”
According to reports, Prof. Venizelos had also angered Prime Minister George Papandreou in recent Cabinet meetings by criticising the government’s economic policy, which is tightly confined by the terms of Greece’s recent loan bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
Born in the northern metropolis of Thessaloniki in 1957, Prof. Venizelos studied law at the city’s Aristotelio University before pursuing a postgraduate degree at the University of Paris II.
Returning to Greece and his alma mater in the early eighties, he taught and practised law for nearly a decade before successfully running for Parliament on the Socialist Party ticket in 1993, and defending his Thessaloniki seat in five successive elections.
Fluent in French and English, Prof. Venizelos went on to serve as a trusted aide to Socialist Party founder and three-time Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, the father of the current PM.
His career has included the post of government spokesman and stints as minister for transport, industry, justice, development and culture.
But despite his association with the Papandreou family, Prof. Venizelos mounted a determined challenge in 2007 to wrest the party from Andreas’ Papandreou son George, who had become leader of the Socialists three years previously, after the party was twice defeated in elections.
Handily defeated, he made his peace with George Papandreou and was rewarded with the post of party speaker in Parliament before being appointed to the defence ministry when the Socialists swept to power in October 2009.
He brought his customary aggressiveness to his new post, entering into tough negotiations with German and Arab investors in an effort to save jobs at one of Greece’s top shipyards.
A decade earlier, Prof. Venizelos had spearheaded a 2001 revision to the Greek constitution and subsequently headed the country’s frenetic preparations to host the Athens 2004 Olympics, which ran massively over-budget.
With the necessary infrastructure frequently running over budget and behind schedule, Prof. Venizelos – then Culture Minister – repeatedly sparred with Olympic officials and opposition politicians who criticised Greece’s progress.
One of his greatest challenges was to quash opposition to the construction of a new museum beneath the Acropolis which residents and archaeologists claimed would destroy pre-existing antiquities.