Macedonian Press Agency: Special Report in English, 98-04-23

From: Macedonian Press Agency <mpa@philippos.mpa.gr>

Macedonian Press Agency: News in English Directory

SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN BY THE MACEDONIAN PRESS AGENCY

Thessaloniki, April 23, 1998

TITLES

[01] KONSTANTINOS KARAMANLIS DIED AT 1.40 AM TODAY

[02] KONSTANTINOS KARAMANLIS

NEWS IN DETAIL

[01] KONSTANTINOS KARAMANLIS DIED AT 1.40 AM TODAY

Athens, 23/04/1998 (MPA)

Konstantinos Karamanlis was fighting for his life for over 10 days at the medical center "Hygeia" and according to his doctors he died of heart failure.

[02] KONSTANTINOS KARAMANLIS

Athens, 23/04/1998 (MPA)

He was born in the village of Proti in the prefecture of Serres, in northern Greece on February 23, 1907. He studied law and worked as a lawyer in the city of Serres. He entered politics in 1935 when he was elected in Parliament as a deputy of the Popular Party in the constituency of Serres. He was re-elected in 1936. During the dictatorship of Metaxas and the German occupation he withdrew from politics and after the liberation he entered politics again. In the elections of 1946 and 1950 he was elected in Parliament as a Popular Party deputy. He left the Popular Party to join Papagos' Ellinikos Sinegermos and under its banner was elected Parliament deputy in the constituency of Serres in 1951 and in 1952.

In the period of 1946-1952 he held many ministerial posts. He became labor minister in the Tsaldaris government on November 24, 1946 until the end of February 1947. In 1948 he became transport minister in the Sofoulis government and then social welfare minister until January 1950. In the period of January-November 1950 he held the ministry of national defense in the Sofoklis Venizelos government. In the Alexandros Papagos government he was minister of public works.

In 1955 he was appointed prime minister by the then King Pavlos to replace the dying Papagos. Within four months he founded the National Radical Union ( "Ethniki Rizospastiki Enosi" or ERE) and was joined by 190 Parliament deputies. As the leader of ERE he won three election races in 1956, 1958 and 1961 and remained prime minister until November 1963. In the November 3, 1963 elections, ERE was defeated by Georgios Papandreou's Center Union ("Enosis Kentrou") after the accusations made against the party on the murder case of leftist Parliament deputy Grigoris Lambrakis. Karamanlis resigned from the ERE leadership and left for Paris where he stayed as a private individual for 11 years until the political changeover.

He returned to Greece in July 1974 after the collapse of the seven-year dictatorship of the colonels and led a national unity government as prime minister. In the November 1974 elections his New Democracy party ("Nea Dimokratia") won the race with 54% of the vote and in the 1978 elections he was triumphant again with 41%. One of the first decisions made by Karamanlis after the political changeover was the legalization of the Greek Communist Party, the restitution of the Greek nationality for thousands of political refugees who returned to Greece and the rapprochement with most Balkan states. In the period 1975-1978, Karamanlis visited all the countries of the then Eastern Block, while in October 1979 he visited the Soviet Union and in November of the same year went to China. He made similar openings toward the countries of the Arab world as well.

However, the most significant achievement of Konstantinos Karamanlis was the accession of Greece into the European Economic Community which took place in May 1979 and the country's re-accession into NATO that was completed in October 1980.

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