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23 April, 1998
Eminent Greek statesman Constantine Karamanlis was born in 1907 in Proti, near Serres, northern Greece, the first of four sons and three daughters of George Karamanlis, a teacher and later tobacco grower, and Fotini Dologlou.
He arrived to Athens in 1923, and graduated from the Athens University Law School in 1929. He enlisted in the 30th Infantry Regiment in Serres in 1930, but was discharged four months later due to a hearing impediment.
Mr. Karamanlis was elected to the Greek parliament for the first time in 1935 as an MP for the People's Party from the Serres region, and was re-elected in 1936, but after the August 4 1936 dictatorship was imposed he returned to Serres and started practicing law.
In 1941, the year of the Nazi occupation of Greece, he settled in Athens and became a member of the Athens Bar Association, and a year later, together with Constantine Tsatsos, Xenophon Zolotas and George Mavros formed an intellectual group concerned over the future of the country. The group dissolved three years later.
In 1944, Mr. Karamanlis secretly left occupied Greece and reached Cairo via Turkey and Syria and from there to Alexandria (October 1944). Upon arrival he learned that Athens had been liberated, and returned to Greece.
In 1946 he was elected again to Parliament as a deputy on a conservative ticket from Serres. The same year he traveled to the United States and underwent successful surgery for a hearing problem and, while there, was appointed a member of the financial mission led by Sophocles Venizelos, then applying for US aid for the restoration of damages suffered by Greece during the war. Under the aid package, Washington granted Greece 100 "Liberty" ships, which served as the basis for the reconstruction of the Greek merchant fleet.
Upon his return to Greece in November of that year, he was appointed to a government post for the first time, becoming minister of labor in the Panayis Tsaldaris government. He retained the post until a January 1947 reshuffle, and after Dimitrios Maximos took over as premier.
In May 1948 he was appointed transport minister in the Sofoulis government, and took over the social security ministry in November of that year, where he stayed for two years.
During the 1950 elections, he was re-elected to Parliament from Serres with the People's Party, and in September of that year he briefly became defense minister in the Sophocles Venizelos government.
In 1951 Karamanlis joined the Greek Rally (Synagermos) party, newly established by retired Field Marshal Alexandros Papagos, was elected to Parliament on that party's ticket, and was re-elected in 1952, both times as a deputy for Serres. In July 1952 he married Amalia Kanellopoulou, the niece of Panayiotis Kanellopoulos, whom he divorced in 1970. That same month he was appointed to the ministry of public works, where he remained until 1955, also taking over the transport portfolio in December 1954.
In October 1955, Karamanlis became premier for the first time, having been given the mandate to form a government by King Paul after Papagos' death.
On Jan. 4, 1956, Karamanlis established the National Radical Union (ERE) comprising most of the Greek Rally MPs and members of centrist parties, including Constantinos Tsatsos and Evangelos Averof. ERE won the general elections a month later and Karamanlis formed his second government, in which he also held the national defense portfolio.
In 1958, after 15 ERE MPs left the party, the government lost its absolute majority in Parliament and new elections took place in May, when Karamanlis became prime minister of his third consecutive government. In February 1959, Karamanlis' talks with his Turkish counterpart in Zurich and the quadripartite talks in London resulted in the signing of the Zurich and London Agreements, respectively, declaring Cyprus a unified and independent republic.
In September 1959, talks began for Greece's accession to the EEC, and a customs union agreement was signed two years later, becoming effective on Nov. 1, 1962.
Karamanlis remained premier until 1963, as his ERE party won the next general elections in 1961. He resigned in June 1963 after a dispute with the palace, opposition accusations over the 1961 electoral result, and the explosive situation that had been created after the assassination of left-wing EDA party deputy Grigoris Lambrakis in Thessaloniki by supporters of the extreme-right.
Karamanlis resigned as the head of ERE after the party failed to carry the November 1963 elections, and a month later went into self-exile in Paris, where he remained for 11 years, during which time he was not actively involved in politics.
Karamanlis triumphantly returned to Greece on the night of July 23, 1974, after the collapse of the seven-year colonels' dictatorship in the country.
He formed a national unity government the next day, and established the New Democracy (ND) party in September in view of elections in November, which his party carried with 54 per cent of the vote and in which he was elected a deputy for Athens' first district. He also legalized the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in September, while a December 1974 referendum abolished the monarchy and established a presidential republic.
ND also carried the November 1977 general elections with 41 per cent and Karamanlis was elected in Athens' first district and formed a new government.
His goal of bringing Greece into the European Community was realized in May 1979 when the accession treaty was signed in Athens. Greece became a member of the European Community on January 1, 1981.
He remained prime minister until May 1980, when he resigned after Parliament elected him president of the republic in the third round of voting and he was succeeded by George Rallis as ND leader and premier.
He remained in the presidency until 1985, when he was succeeded by Supreme Court judge Christos Sartzetakis, and was re-elected by the Parliament to the presidency in 1990 for a new five-year term. At the end of his term in 1995, Karamanlis retired from public life and was succeeded by Kostis Stephanopoulos.
Source: Athens News Agency
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