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Family and officials attend the state funeral of late former Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, Greece, January 9, 2025. [Reuters\/Alkis Konstantinidis]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Mourners lined the streets outside Athens\u2019 central cathedral Thursday for the state funeral of former Prime Minister Costas Simitis, a law professor and reformist who steered Greece into the European Union\u2019s single currency. Simitis, who died last weekend at the age of 88, was praised for his pivotal role in modernizing Greece and advancing its European integration.<\/p>\n
Traffic in central Athens came to a halt as the hearse, draped in the Greek flag, made its way to the Metropolitan Cathedral. Hundreds of mourners, including Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, senior PASOK officials and Cyprus\u2019 President Nikos Christodoulides, gathered for the funeral service, which followed four days of national mourning. After the service, a large crowd escorted the hearse on foot in a 30-minute procession to Athens\u2019 First Cemetery, the resting place of numerous notable Greeks, including politicians, musicians and artists.<\/p>\n In accordance with his family\u2019s wishes, Simitis\u2019 body did not lie in state. However, members of the public gathered outside the cathedral to pay their respects.<\/p>\n Politicians and public figures paid tribute to the late premier, known for his pragmatic, low-key style. He was credited with securing Greece\u2019s entry into the eurozone in 2001, facilitating Cyprus\u2019 accession to the European Union in 2004, and modernizing Greece\u2019s infrastructure in preparation for the 2004 Athens Olympics. Under his leadership, Greece invested heavily in projects such as a new airport and two subway lines to help the capital host the games.<\/p>\n \u201cHe set the bar high and boldly for a strong, equal Greece in Europe,\u201d Sakellaropoulou said in her eulogy. \u201cThe accession to the eurozone and the accession of Cyprus to the European Union were brilliant achievements.\u201d She further described his \u201cmodernization policy\u201d as \u201cnot just a political platform of the time but a continuous institutional and social exercise, a constant challenge to reform until today.\u201d<\/p>\n Current Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called Simitis \u201ca fighter against the dictatorship and a worthy servant of democracy, but also a noble adversary with whom our parties managed to agree on two crucial choices: Greece\u2019s accession to the euro and \u2026 Cyprus\u2019 entry into the European Union.\u201d Mitsotakis\u2019 conservative New Democracy party was the long-time main rival to the socialist PASOK party Simitis co-founded in 1974.<\/p>\n Despite these accolades, Simitis\u2019 tenure was not without controversy. Five years after he left power, Greece fell into an unprecedented, decade-long debt crisis that nearly forced the country out of the eurozone. The crisis required Greece to accept international bailouts worth 290 billion euros ($299 billion) that came with painful austerity measures. Economists traced the roots of the financial meltdown to systemic issues, including graft and corruption, during Simitis\u2019 government and earlier administrations. Some questioned whether Greece was fully prepared to join the eurozone in 2001.<\/p>\n A committed pro-European, Simitis served two consecutive four-year terms as prime minister from January 1996 to March 2004 \u2013 a record for longevity in a Greek administration. He emerged as the leader of a modernizing wing of PASOK and often clashed with the party\u2019s charismatic founder, Andreas Papandreou. During PASOK\u2019s first term in power (1981\u20131985), when Greece\u2019s economy deteriorated, Papandreou appointed Simitis as finance minister to oversee austerity measures. While finances improved, Simitis resigned in 1987 when Papandreou announced a more generous wage policy that undermined the austerity program.<\/p>\n When PASOK returned to power in 1993, Papandreou was ailing and resigned the premiership in January 1996. In a tightly contested internal vote, Simitis unexpectedly emerged as the new prime minister, a position he held until 2004. His achievements included securing the 2004 Olympic Games for Athens and helping Cyprus join the European Union in 2004, despite concerns about admitting a divided nation into the bloc.<\/p>\n Born on June 23, 1936, Simitis was the younger son of politically active parents. His lawyer father, Georgios, was a member of the left-leaning resistance \u201cgovernment\u201d during the German occupation from 1941 to 1944, and his mother, Fani, was an active feminist.<\/p>\n Simitis studied law at the University of Marburg, in Germany, in the 1950s, and economics and politics at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s. He later taught law at the University of Athens. His elder brother, Spiros, who died in 2023, was a noted legal scholar in Germany.\u00a0[AP\/Reuters]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"greeks-bid-farewell-to-former-pm-costas-simitis-at-his-state-funeral0\"](\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/4522634-1.jpg?1736430380913\")
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