Avramopoulos, Dimitris

Dimitris Avramopoulos was born in Athens in 1953 in a family originating from Elijah and Arcadia . He served in the Greek Air Force (1978-1980), based in Athens, and at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Married, has two sons, Filippos and Jasonas. Fluent in English, French and Italian.

Between 1980 and 1993, he served as a diplomat at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens. From 1988 to 1992 he was consul of Greece in Liege . In parallel, during this period he was a special diplomatic adviser to the president and leader of the New Democracy party, Kostas Mitsotakis . He also represented Greece at the conference on security and cooperation in Europe in Vienna that year. In 1992, he served as the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens and was Consul General of Greece in Geneva. In 1993 he was appointed chairman of the diplomatic office of the Prime Minister of Greece .

In 1993 left the diplomatic service. He was elected a member of the Central Committee of the conservative party New Democracy. For the period 1993 - 1994 he was elected a member of the Greek Parliament. In the period from 1995 to 2002 he was elected mayor of Athens (he was re-elected in October 1998 ). From 1995 to 1999, he served as chairman of the Central Union of Local Government of Greece. In 1995, he founded and became the first president of the Permanent Meeting of Mayors of the Capitals of Southeast Europe. From 1996 to 2000, he served as vice president of the executive committee of the International Union of Local Authorities (IUIC) and from 1997 to 2002 was a member of the Committee of the Regions of the European Union.

In 2001, Avramopoulos, unhappy with the ongoing conflicts between the leaders of the New Democracy K. Karamanlis and K. Mitsotakis , founded his liberal party, the Movement of Free Citizens ( Greek Κίνημα Ελευθέρων Πολιτών, ΚΕΠ ). The first polls showed that KEP can get up to 24% in elections. However, the initial enthusiasm quickly faded away and the rating of the party began to fall. In 2002, Avramopoulos unexpectedly announced the cessation of KEP due to financial problems, promising that the organization will remain as a “think tank”. After that, he, with most of his supporters, returned to the New Democracy.

When the New Democracy won the election in 2004 , Dimitris Avramopoulos assumed the post of Deputy Minister of Tourism, where he remained until 2006 . From 2006 to 2009, he served as Minister of Health and Social Solidarity. In the early elections in October 2009, Dimitris Avramopoulos was re-elected as a member of the Greek Parliament. After the election of Antonis Samaras as the leader of the New Democracy, in 2010 Avramopoulos took the post of vice-president of the party, and he remains in this position to this day. On November 11, 2011, he was appointed Minister of National Defense of Greece in the coalition government of Lucas Papadimos , replacing Panagiotis Beglitis in this post. November 1, 2014 took the post of European Commissioner for Home Affairs, replacing Cecilia Malmstrom .

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