Greeks bid farewell to former PM Costas Simitis at state funeral
Mourners lined the streets outside Athens’ central cathedral on Thursday 9 January 2025, for the state funeral of former Prime Minister Costas Simitis, a law professor and reformist who steered Greece into the European Union’s single currency. Former Prime Minister Simitis, who died last weekend at the age of 88, was praised for his pivotal role in modernising Greece and advancing its European integration.
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’ 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’ First Cemetery, the resting place of numerous notable Greeks, including politicians, musicians and artists.
In accordance with his family’s wishes, Simitis’ body did not lie in state. However, members of the public gathered outside the cathedral to pay their respects.
Politicians and public figures paid tribute to the late Prime Minister, known for his pragmatic, low-key style. He was credited with securing Greece’s entry into the eurozone in 2001, facilitating Cyprus’ accession to the European Union in 2004, and modernising Greece’s 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.
“He set the bar high and boldly for a strong, equal Greece in Europe,” Sakellaropoulou said in her eulogy. “The accession to the eurozone and the accession of Cyprus to the European Union were brilliant achievements.” She further described his “modernisation policy” as “not just a political platform of the time but a continuous institutional and social exercise, a constant challenge to reform until today.”
Current Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called Simitis “a 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’s accession to the euro and … Cyprus’ entry into the European Union.” Mitsotakis’ conservative New Democracy party was the long-time main rival to the socialist PASOK party Simitis co-founded in 1974.
Despite these accolades, Simitis’ 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’ government and earlier administrations. Some questioned whether Greece was fully prepared to join the eurozone in 2001.
A committed pro-European, Simitis served two consecutive four-year terms as prime minister from January 1996 to March 2004 – 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’s charismatic founder, Andreas Papandreou. During PASOK’s first term in power (1981–1985), when Greece’s 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.
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.
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 “government” during the German occupation from 1941 to 1944, and his mother, Fani, was an active feminist.
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.
Source: AP/Reuters
