PROFILE: EVANGELOS VENIZELOS:With his tough, martial approach, replete with Churchillian promises of a hard-won victory, can the Greek finance minister prevent his country from defaulting?
WITH Greece’s prime minister, George Papandreou, absenting himself from the public scene, one could easily get the impression that his deputy and finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, is now running the country.
Described in one WikiLeaked US diplomatic cable as “pugnacious, proud and at times caustic” and in another as “sharp, witty and bullying”, Venizelos was born in the northern port city of Thessaloníki in 1957. Part of the first student cohort to enrol at university after the fall of the military junta in 1974, he took his law degree four years later, and studied in Paris for a short period before returning to Thessaloníki, where he obtained a doctorate in constitutional law in 1980.
The same year, Venizelos, who had cut his political teeth as a student activist, became a member of the central party apparatus of Andreas Papandreou’s Pasok party, which would form Greece’s first socialist government, in 1981.
In a system where cronyism is the rule, it would be only a matter of time before Venizelos would profit from his party connections. That came in 1984, when he was appointed a law lecturer at his alma mater. A professorship followed.
Loquacious but not particularly eloquent, Venizelos has reaped the benefits of his sophistry over the years. In the mid-1980s, he provided the legal reasoning, via a newspaper article, that greatly helped the wily Papandreou to plant his own man in the office of the presidency, after a controversial and acrimonious vote that many described as nothing short of a parliamentary coup.
His successful role in defending Papandreou against corruption charges in 1989 guaranteed him an even greater role in politics, which came with his election to parliament in 1993 and appointment as press minister less than a year later.
Since then, and in typical Greek political style, he has held six portfolios, including transport and communications, justice, culture, development, defence and, since a reshuffle this June, finance. In his four years as minister of culture, he oversaw much of the preparation for the exorbitant 2004 Athens Olympics.
Venizelos’s obvious lack of expertise for many of his ministerial posts, including his present one, is compensated by the fact that he is a fast learner and, moreover, a skilled and shrewd political operator.
But when he challenged George Papandreou, Andreas’s son, for the Pasok leadership in 2007, after the socialists were roundly beaten in national elections, his many years as a party cadre and minister were not enough for him to clinch the top party post.
When Pasok was finally returned to government, in 2009, George Papandreou, whose soft-spoken character couldn’t be more different from that of the stern constitutional professor, brought Venizelos back into the fold, giving him the defence portfolio. But with procurements out of the question as the country’s indebtedness was revealed, the post was largely administrative, allowing Venizelos little scope for power or patronage.
With no love lost between the two, Venizelos opted to keep his head down as minister, while Papandreou and his then finance minister and friend, George Papconstantinou, struggled to administer Greece an unpalatable dose of troika-prescribed austerity.
When it became clear before the summer that the bailout targets were far from being met – or when, as many would argue, the whole IMF-EU-ECB programme was exposed as being completely unsuited to realities on the ground in Greece – Papandreou called Venizelos in to take over the most important ministerial post.
He wasn’t Papandreou’s first choice, and, when asked, Venizelos is said to have demanded the title of deputy prime minister as a condition.
Announcing that he was “leaving defence to go to the real war”, the portly Venizelos hasn’t stopped using Churchillian battle cries since, in an effort to convince the overwhelmingly sceptical markets that Greece will overcome adversity and, his critics will say, to bully the population into submission.
But while his career may be full of examples of pursuing politically expedient choices to achieve ulterior goals, it is difficult now to see what political capital Venizelos can cash in on with his current role as lord high austerity administrator, now that Papandreou has left it to him to lead all-important negotiations with the troika, deliver parliamentary briefings and put in television appearances.
Some believe Venizelos’s cleverness could see him take the position of leader at some stage. But the question remains about what, if anything, will be left of Pasok now that he has opted to place even greater financial burdens on the shoulders of pensioners and wage-earners – who pay their taxes at source – and not on the country’s notorious tax-evaders.
Perhaps a Fianna Fáil-like meltdown awaits Pasok, but it is doubtful whether Venizelos’s considerable ego could cope with building up the party again from scratch.
Curriculum vitae
Who is he?A Greek constitutional lawyer, socialist Pasok MP and Greece's finance minister and deputy prime minister.
Why is he in the news?Because he now finds himself in the unenviable position of trying to convince extremely sceptical markets that Greece can stave off default by extracting even more tax euro from his people.
Most appealing characteristicAn air of seriousness and determination, traits not generally shared by most of his fellow MPs.
Least appealing characteristicAn austere lack of warmth, in looks and speech.
Most likely to say"Blood, toil, tears and sweat."
Least likely to say"Regretfully, we are bankrupt." (The words used by Greek prime minister Charilaos Trikoupis in 1893.)
