31 Facts About Karolos Papoulias

Karolos Papoulias was a Greek politician who served as the president of Greece from 2005 to 2015.

Karolos Papoulias was born in the village of Molyvdoskepastos, Ioannina on 4 June 1929, and was the son of Major General Gregorios Papoulias.

Karolos Papoulias attended primary school in Pogoniani and secondary schools in Pogoniani, Zosimaia School in Ioannina, and in the Paleo Faliro and Pangrati districts of Athens.

The Nazi invasion of Greece in April 1941 caught him studying in Pogoniani and Papoulias joined the armed resistance against the Germans.

Karolos Papoulias obtained a law degree from the University of Athens, a master's degree in public international law and international relations from the University of Milan, and a doctorate in private international law from the University of Cologne with a doctoral thesis entitled: "Erwerb und Verlust des unmittelbaren Besitzes im griechishen und deutschen Recht".

Karolos Papoulias was in West Germany at the time of the 1967 coup d'etat and Papoulias headed the organization of the Democratic Socialist Union Abroad, which was responsible for mobilizing Greek workers, students and scientists in Europe against the new junta of the Colonels.

Karolos Papoulias founded the first trade union organization of the resistance and collaborated with the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Karolos Papoulias was an associate of the Munich Institute for Southeast Europe.

Karolos Papoulias was a founding member and president of the Association for the Greek Linguistic Heritage.

Karolos Papoulias was active in the left-wing EPON youth as a young man.

Karolos Papoulias was a founding member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement and a close associate of its leader Andreas Papandreou.

Karolos Papoulias was member of the Coordination Council, the Executive Bureau and the Political Secretariat, as well as Secretary of the PASOK International Relations Committee from April 1975 to 1985.

Karolos Papoulias was first elected to the Greek Parliament in 1977 for Ioannina, and held his seat continuously through the subsequent legislative elections until his 2004 election as President of the Republic.

Under Andreas Papandreou government, Karolos Papoulias was deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, from 1981 to 1985, and from 1985 to 1989 and from 1993 to 1996, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Karolos Papoulias mediated a safe departure of trapped Palestinian militants and Yasser Arafat from Lebanon aboard Greek vessels in 1983.

Karolos Papoulias created diplomatic relations with the Arab world and achieved the normalization of relations between Greece and Egypt and the establishment of tripartite cooperation between Iran, Armenia, and Greece.

Karolos Papoulias held talks with a total of 12 Turkish Foreign Ministers to normalize Greco-Turkish relations.

Karolos Papoulias supported Turkey's European aspirations conditional on their respect for international law and European Union values.

Karolos Papoulias signed the Interim Agreement with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, aiming at the establishment of better relations between that nation and Greece.

Karolos Papoulias was very interested in relations between Greece and the Balkan states and it was upon his initiative that the first meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Balkans was organized in Belgrade in 1988.

Karolos Papoulias was responsible for the signing of the protocol of mutual civil and military assistance with Bulgaria in the 1980s.

Karolos Papoulias restored friendly and neighbourly relations with Albania by ending the state of war between that country and Greece.

Karolos Papoulias won over the other four candidates that PASOK and ND had been negotiating.

Karolos Papoulias was sworn in as the 6th President of the Third Hellenic Republic on 12 March 2005, succeeding Konstantinos Stephanopoulos.

At the inauguration of the Acropolis Museum on 20 June 2009, Karolos Papoulias demanded the return of the Elgin Marbles from the United Kingdom, which were torn from the Parthenon by the British, because "it is time to heal the wounds of the monument with the return of the marbles that belong to it".

Papademos resigned few months after, in April 2012 and asked Karolos Papoulias to dissolve the Parliament and call for a snap election, scheduled for 6 May of that year.

On 15 February 2012 Karolos Papoulias resigned his salary as president.

The murder of rapper and anti-fascist Pavlos Fyssas in September 2013 by a Golden Dawn neo-fascist sparked a wave of outrage in Greece and Karolos Papoulias stated that "it's my supreme duty as president of the republic to defend democracy and the Greek people from the storm that is approaching" and protect Greeks from neo-fascism.

In 2014, during an official visit by German President Joachim Gauck Karolos Papoulias demanded that talks be scheduled as soon as possible on Greek claims for war reparations for the brutal German occupation during World War II.

Karolos Papoulias was married to Mary Panou and together, they had three daughters.

Karolos Papoulias died on 26 December 2021 in Athens at the age of 92.