Evangelos Venizelos – The 4th Archon International Conference on Religious Freedom
Evangelos Venizelos (born in 1957, in Thessaloniki) is a former Deputy Prime Minister (2011 – 2015) and former President of PASOK (2012 – 2015). He was a governmental partner of the 2012 – 2015 coalition government (also known as the “Samaras-Venizelos government”)

Between 1993 and 2015, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finance, National Defence, Development, Culture, Justice, Transport, Press and Mass Media.

As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he chaired the work of the General Affairs Council of the European Union during the Greek Presidency in the first half of 2014.

As Minister of Finance, during the darkest hours of the Greek economic crisis 2011-2012), he managed, among other things, the write-down and restructuring of the Greek public debt.

He was the minister responsible for coordinating the country’s preparations for the 2004 Olympics.

A member of the Hellenic Parliament from 1993 to 2019, he has been elected ten times as a member of parliament for the first electoral constituency of Thessaloniki.

He was the Rapporteur General for the extensive amendment of the Greek Constitution in 2001.

As a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, he served as rapporteur for monitoring the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in the 46 member countries. In 2022 he was appointed a member and elected rapporteur of the seven-member high – level reflection group on the future of the Council of Europe.

Evangelos Venizelos is a Professor of Constitutional Law at the Law School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki since 1984. He is an attorney at law in the supreme courts.

In 2016, he founded the think tank “Kyklos Ideon” (Circle of Ideas).