Vasso Papandreou, a founding member of PASOK, dies
Vasso Papandreou, one of the founding members of the socialist PASOK party, and a former European commissioner, minister and MP, has died. She was 79 years old.
According to reports, she had been struggling with health issues in recent months.
Papandreou was best known for advocating for women’s rights – and was, in fact, the first woman to represent Greece as a commissioner in the EU, then the European Economic Community – social welfare and disabled rights.
She was exiled during the 1969-1973 military dictatorship and became one of the founding members of PASOK when she returned to Greece, going on to serve in the party’s central committee and several cabinet posts in the governments of Andreas Papandreou (to whom she was not related).
She was assigned the portfolio for employment, industrial relations and social affairs in the European Commission in 1989.
Under Costas Simitis, between 1996 and 2004, she held the top posts at the ministries of economic development, interior and environment and public works.
She also served as an MP for Athens’ First Constituency, being elected to Parliament in 1993, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2007 and 2009. She was ousted from PASOK’s parliamentary group in 2012.
Papandreou will be laid to rest on Saturday in her native Valimitika in Aigio in the northern Peloponnese.
