Filippos Petsalnikos

Filippos Petsalnikos (Greek Φίλιππος Πετσάλνικος, born December 1, 1950 in Mavrochori / Kastoria Prefecture) is a Greek politician of the Social Democratic party PASOK. He was several times minister and President of the Greek Parliament.

Biography

Petsalnikos was born the son of a farmer, and studied law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Bonn. In 1969, during the military rule in Greece, he was a member of the Circle of Friends, founded by Andreas Papandreou 's Liberation Movement PAH in the Federal Republic of Germany, Chairman of the Association of Greek students and the Greek community in Bonn. In 1974 he was one of the founding members of PASOK and one of the founders of the first organizations that party in Germany.

After his return to Greece, he practiced as a lawyer in Athens.

Petsalnikos is married to the German lawyer Mariele Biedendieck and has three children.

Political offices

1984 to 1985 he was State Secretary working for Adult Education in the Greek Ministry of Education. In the elections of 1985 he was elected as a Member of Kastoria in the Greek Parliament.

In 2004 and again in September 2007, he was elected one of the Vice- President of the Greek Parliament.

From April 1986 to June 1988 and from December 1988 to July 1989, he was Deputy Minister of National Education and Religious Affairs, July 1994 to January 1996 Minister of State for Education, then until October 1998 Minister of Macedonia and Thrace, and then until February 1999 Minister for public order, when he was dismissed from his ministerial post at the behest of the then Prime Minister Konstantinos Simitis because of the Ocalan affair.

He returned in April 2000, a Minister of National Education and Religious Affairs in the government and was from October 2001 to March 2004 Minister of Justice.

After the PASOK had won in the parliamentary elections of 2009, the majority, he was elected on 15 October 2009 as Chairman of Parliament. This office he held until May 2012.

Petsalnikos has in April 2009 for his services to the German - Greek relations - get with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Grand Cross of Merit - among other things, he is president of the parliamentary German-Greek friendship group.