Greek political lynchpin Theodoros Pangalos has died

Theodoros Pangalos was born in Elefsina on August 17, 1938.

At a young age he was involved in student unionism, participating in various student groups. He was part of the group that proceeded to inscribe the slogan “1 1 4” on the walls of public buildings (which subsequently became dominant in the student protests of the 1960s). He was also a founding member of the “Grigoris Lambrakis” Democratic Youth Movement, which was renamed “Grigoris Lambrakis” Youth, as well as the left-wing organization “Student Democratic Resistance”.

In 1978 he ran for mayor of Elefsina and came third. He was also active in the Greek Communist Party-KKE at a young age. During the post-junta period, he was a leading member of the broader center-left faction with the Panhellenic Socialist Movement.

He was elected Member of Parliament of Attica for the first time in 1981 with PASOK and since then he was elected in all the electoral contests in which he ran.

Who was Theodoros Pangalos

He studied Law at the University of Athens and Economics (Doctor of Economic Sciences) at the University of Paris I (Pantheon Sorbonne) with a scholarship from the French Government.

With significant activity in the student movement and a founding member of the Lambrakis Youth, he played an active role in the anti-dictatorship struggle as a result of which he was stripped of his Greek citizenship by the junta in 1968.

From 1969 to 1978 he worked as a researcher at the same University and was then appointed Director of the University’s Institute of Economic Development. He participated in the anti-dictatorship struggle and in 1968 the dictatorial regime took away his Greek citizenship, which he regained after the fall of the junta.

In March 2004 he was re-elected Member of Parliament of Attica. He was appointed head of PASOK’s Political Council in the Development, Competitiveness, Consumer Policy and Rural Development Sector, as well as PASOK’s rapporteur on the Constitutional Review.

He participated in the delegation of the Hellenic Parliament to the Council of Europe and the Western European Union. After PASOK’s victory in the 2009 elections, he was appointed deputy prime minister

of Greece, a position he retained in both reshuffles of the Papandreou government. He remained Deputy Prime Minister during the term of the transitional government of Loukas Papadimos.He withdrew from active political activity before the May 2012 elections.