Giorgios Contogeorgis

Giorgios Contogeorgis (21 November 1912 – 9 November 2009) was a Greek economist who became a civil servant and politician. He played a crucial role in planning Greece's accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1981, and the became Greece's first European Commissioner.

Born in Tinos, Contogeorgis studied economics at the Supreme School of Economics and Business in Athens, and took a masters degree in the United States.[1] He joined the Greek civil service, rising to become General Director of the Ministry of Commerce, but resigned from that post when the Greek junta took power after a coup in 1967. When civilian rule was restored in 1974, the Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis appointed Contogeorgis as Deputy Minister of Coordination and Planning.[2]

At the 1977 elections, Contogeorgis was elected to the Hellenic Parliament as a candidate of Karamanlis's New Democracy party. In 1979, he was one of the signatories of the treaty by which Greece acceded to the EEC,[3] and in May 1980 the new Prime Minister George Rallis appointed Contogeorgis to his cabinet as a minister without portfolio, with responsibility for relations with the EEC.[4]

In January 1981, Contogeorgis took office as the European Commissioner for Transport, Fisheries and Tourism in the Thorn Commission.[4] He held that post until the next Commission took office in early 1985. He later served for two brief periods as Greece's Minister for Minister of National Economy and Tourism,[4] in late 1989 and early 1990.