Editing Costas Simitis (section)

== Biography ==
Costas Simitis was born in [[Piraeus]] to Georgios Simitis, a Professor at the [[Athens University of Economics and Business|School of Economic and Commercial Sciences]] who later became a member of the [[National Liberation Front (Greece)|National Liberation Front]] government in World War II, and to his wife Fani (née Christopoulou). He studied law at the [[University of Marburg]] in Germany and economics at the [[London School of Economics]]. He was married to Daphne Arkadiou (b. 1938) and had two daughters, Fiona and Marilena.  He resided in the [[Kolonaki]] district of Athens. His brother [[Spiros Simitis]] was a prominent [[jurist]] specializing in [[data privacy]] in Germany.<ref name="ap"/>

=== Political activity before 1981 ===
In 1965, he returned to Greece and was one of the founders of the "[[Alexandros Papanastasiou]]" political research group. In 1967, after the [[Greek junta|military coup on 21 April]], this group was transformed into [[Democratic Defense]], an organization opposed to the [[Regime of the Colonels|military regime]]. Simitis fled abroad after planting bombs in the streets of Athens (in later years, he acknowledged his activities on the Greek MEGA TV channel) in order to avoid being jailed and became a member of the [[Panhellenic Liberation Movement]] (PAK), led by [[Andreas Papandreou]]. He also took up a position as a university lecturer in Germany. He returned to Athens in 1974 and was one of the co-founders of PAK's successor, the [[Panhellenic Socialist Movement]] (PASOK). In 1977, he took up a lecturer's post at the [[Panteion University]].

=== Ministerial offices ===
Simitis was not a candidate for the Greek Parliament in the [[1981 Greek legislative election|1981 elections]], but he was appointed Minister of Agriculture in the first PASOK government of that year. Following the [[1985 Greek legislative election|1985 elections]] and his election as a deputy to the Parliament, he became Minister of National Economy; he undertook an unpopular stabilization program, trying to curb inflation and reduce deficits, but resigned his post in 1987 because he felt that his policies were being undermined.<ref name="ap"/> In 1993, he took over the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, but in 1995, he again resigned from the ministry and the party's Executive Bureau following a public rebuke he received from Prime Minister [[Andreas Papandreou]].

=== Rise to the offices of Prime Minister and President of PASOK ===
On 16 January 1996, Papandreou resigned as Prime Minister due to ill health. In a special election held by the party's parliamentary group on 18 January, Simitis was elected in his place over the candidacies of [[Akis Tsochatzopoulos]], [[Gerasimos Arsenis]] and [[Ioannis Charalambopoulos]]. Papandreou, however, remained Chairman of the party for the next months until his death on 23 June (also Simitis' 60th birthday), just before a party conference would select the party's vice-president; after Papandreou's death, the conference would elect the new Party President. Simitis was elected in PASOK's Fourth Congress on 30 June, defeating Akis Tsochatzopoulos on a platform of support for the [[European Union]].

Simitis then led the party in the [[1996 Greek legislative election|national elections]] of 22 September 1996, gaining a mandate in his own right. He also narrowly won the [[2000 Greek legislative election|national election of 2000]]. He worked very closely and had a good relationship with his [[Cabinet Secretary]] of eight years, [[Sokratis Kosmidis]]. Although he is widely respected throughout Europe,{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} in Greece, Simitis was regarded by some Greeks as a rather dull technocrat, lacking the charisma of Papandreou.

On 7 January 2004, with PASOK's popularity collapsing, Simitis announced that he would resign as party president and would not stand for re-election as Prime Minister in the [[2004 Greek legislative election|forthcoming legislative elections]]. At the time, he was accused of bowing out to avoid humiliation at the polls. However, by the end of his tenure on 10 March, he would be in office for over eight consecutive years, the longest continuous term in modern Greek history. In a past interview, Simitis had already stated that he would remain prime minister for only two legislative periods since "he wanted to do other things in his life as well." On 8 January, he called elections for the party president to be held on 8 February. Simitis was succeeded as PASOK leader by the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs [[George Andreas Papandreou|George Papandreou]], the only candidate in these elections. Despite Papandreou's personal popularity, PASOK lost the [[2004 Greek legislative election|7 March elections]] to the conservative [[New Democracy (Greece)|New Democracy]] party, whose leader [[Kostas Karamanlis]] succeeded Simitis in the office of Prime Minister.

=== Political activity after 2004 ===
After the 2004 electoral defeat, Simitis remained a Member of the Hellenic Parliament for Piraeus, sitting on the Standing Committee on National Defence and Foreign Affairs. Re-elected in [[2007 Greek legislative election|September 2007]], he entered into a conflict with his successor as PASOK leader, George Papandreou, on the political choices of the party. In June 2008, he was excluded from the PASOK parliamentary group after opposing Papandreou's position in favour of a referendum on the [[Treaty of Lisbon]],<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.xpatathens.com/foreign_affairs/simitis-ousted-from-parliamentary-group/|title=Simitis Ousted from Parliamentary Group|newspaper=XPAT Athens|location=Athens|date=13 June 2008|access-date=23 January 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201184632/http://www.xpatathens.com/foreign_affairs/simitis-ousted-from-parliamentary-group/|archive-date=1 February 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.hri.org/news/greek/apeen/2008/08-06-12_3.apeen.html|title=Simitis out of Par'l group|newspaper=[[Athens News Agency]]|location=Athens|date=12 June 2008|access-date=23 January 2014}}</ref> which he had helped to draft as member of the [[Amato Group]]. Though never formally excluded from the party, he kept his distance with the leadership and could not come to terms with Papandreou in time to be a candidate for the [[2007 Greek legislative election|2009 elections]], upon which he definitively left his MP seat for Piraeus. Before his departure, he warned of financial mismanagement that would lead to a [[Greek government-debt crisis|harsh austerity regime]] in Greece imposed by the [[International Monetary Fund]], which eventually came the following year.<ref name="ap"/>

=== Death===
Simitis was found unconscious at his holiday home in [[Corinth]], Greece on 5 January 2025.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-01-05 |title=Κώστας Σημίτης: Πέθανε ο πρώην πρωθυπουργός σε ηλικία 88 ετών |url=https://www.protothema.gr/politics/article/1583875/kostas-simitis-pethane-o-proin-prothupourgos-se-ilikia-88-eton/ |access-date=2025-01-05 |website=ProtoThema |language=el}}</ref> He was taken to a hospital, where he died hours later, aged 88.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/05/obituaries/costas-simitis-dead.html|title=Costas Simitis, 2-Time Prime Minister of Greece, Dies at 88|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=5 January 2025|accessdate=5 January 2025}}</ref> The government declared four days of official mourning and accorded Simitis a [[state funeral]],<ref name="ap">{{Cite web |date=2025-01-05 |title=Costas Simitis, former Greek prime minister and socialist leader, dies at 88 |url=https://apnews.com/article/costas-simitis-obituary-pasok-politics-251a320f1144227517f40b8b08a70e7a |access-date=2025-01-05 |website=AP News |language=en-US}}</ref> which was held at the [[Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens]] on 9 January. He was then buried at the [[First Cemetery of Athens]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-01-09 |title=Greeks pay tribute to former Prime Minister Costas Simitis at his state funeral |url=https://apnews.com/article/greece-costas-simitis-funeral-b3fe8d9cc3a8cab84cfef744f3a6224a |access-date=2025-01-09 |website=AP News |language=en-US}}</ref>