Adonis Georgiadis

Adonis Georgiadis
Minister of Health
In office 25 June 2013 – 9 June 2014
Prime Minister	Antonis Samaras
Preceded by	Andreas Lykourentzos
Succeeded by	Makis Voridis
Personal details
Born	(1972-11-06) 6 November 1972 Athens, Greece
Political party	Book sellers party (Before 2012) New Democracy (2012–present)
Spouse(s)	Eugenia Manolidou
Children	Athanassios-Perseas
Alma mater	University of Athens
Religion	Greek Orthodoxy
Website	Official website

Adonis-Spyridon Georgiadis (also spelled as Georgiades, Greek: Σπυρίδων-Άδωνις Γεωργιάδης), from the ancient Adonis, born 6 November 1972, is a Greek politician, historian, publisher, author and husband of Eugenia Manolidou. He is Vice-President of New Democracy. He was Minister for Health from June 2013 until June 2014.^[1]

Early career

Georgiades' ancestry is from Lefkada, Macedonia (Amyntaio), Pontus, and Smyrna.^[2] He started working at his father’s bookstore at 15. ^[3] He received his university degree in 1992 from the Department of History and Archaeology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens.^[4]

He served as the spokesman for the nationalist Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) political party until August 2007.^[5] Georgiades ran for the office of the Prefect of Athens in the 2006 elections,^[6] and on September 16, 2007 was elected into the Greek parliament.^[7] He was overwhelmingly re-elected on October 4, 2009 for the 2nd district of Athens. During November 2010 he was LAOS' candidate peripheral governor for Attica periphery in the periphery election.

Deputy Minister

On 11 November 2011, he was appointed Deputy Minister for Development, Competitiveness and Shipping in the coalition government of Lucas Papademos. As a Deputy Minister he proceeded to lift the cabotage (which bolstered the economy), something that had been announced many times in the past but was never done by his predecessors,^[8] achieved the railway connection of Limenos - Alexandropoulis, saved millions of euros for the Greek state and combated bureaucracy.^[9]

He resigned on 11 February 2012. On 13 February, he was crossed out of the parliamentary team of LAOS due to voting the second Memorandum against party line. On 17 February he joined New Democracy, having first given up his parliamentary seat to LAOS. He was elected in Parliament for 2nd district of Athens in both May and June elections.

In New Democracy

He was Minister for Health from June 2013 until June 2014.^[10] As Minister, he gave complete free pharmaceutical coverage to more than 2.000.000 uninsured citizens,^[11][12] with the cost being set at 340 million euros. He also merged hospitals and closed unnecessary ones, curbed the cost of medicine and completed the reform of the National Primary Health Care Network, a reform that had been announced since 1979 but was never done.^[13]

In September 2014 Georgiadis was appointed Parliamentary Spokesman for New Democracy. In the elections of January 2015 he was elected in the 2nd district of Athens with 70.853 votes and he was reelected in the September elections.

He was one of the four candidates in the New Democracy leadership election, 2015. ^[14] He campaigned for liberal reforms, tax cuts and cut of public spending and for an ideological battle with the Left, which he considers that it has an ideological hegemony. In the first round he got 11.40% (46,065 votes) and finished fourth. ^[15] In the second round he supported liberal centrist Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who won the elections and became new President of New Democracy. On 18 January, he was appointed as one of the two Vice-Presidents of the party.

Television

Georgiadis often appears on TeleAsty news programmes, a TV channel founded and run by LAOS' leader Georgios Karatzaferis, expressing the opinions of his party. On his daily programme Ellinon Egersis (Greek Uprising; Greek: Ελλήνων Έγερσις) on TeleAsty, along with his brother Leonidas he comments on current affairs, and presents books of mainly historical and philological interest, both from his family publishing house Ekdoseis Georgiadi and other Greek publishers. He also publishes the magazine Elliniki Agogi (Greek Upbringing; Greek: Ελληνική Αγωγή), which covers issues of national and historical interest. An organization under the same name of Elliniki Agogi runs lessons of the Ancient Greek language.

Linguistic views

Georgiades' speaking style might have a nuance of the more formal katharevousa. He also advocates the use of the traditional polytonic system for writing the Greek language; Elliniki Agogi is written in this system, which is not the prevailing practice in Greek publishing from the 1980s. Georgiadis has called for more research to investigate whether the introduction of the monotonic system was beneficial or not to the Greek culture and education.^[16]

Work as an author

As an author, Georgiades has written a historical book titled Homosexuality in Ancient Greece: the Myth Collapses in which he argues that whereas homosexuality was present in Ancient Greece as in other countries, its extent and social acceptance have been inflated.^[17] He had also previously written a Guide to Ancient Greek Coins.

Political attacks to the Left

Georgiades often condemns the opinions expressed in left-wing publications such as Eleftherotypia or by left-wing politicians such as those of Synaspismos, with both parties having exchanged sharp-tongued criticism. He also routinely condemned the policies of the two former leading Greek parties, New Democracy and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, which he viewed as two sides of the same coin. He has often used the term tholokoultoura (Greek: θολοκουλτούρα; hazy-culture) to group his left-wing ideological opponents:

The hazy-culture is a very specific thing: it is a group of people who believe that to remember our national ancestry is a factor of conservatism. They are today the best allies of globalization. What is the goal of globalization? It wants to destroy every notion of a national tradition and a national memory so as to transform the totality of the population of our planet into simple customers of multi-national corporations and into complacent subjects of the world-ruling Superpower.

— Adonis Georgiades in Greek TV show Erevna hosted by Pavlos Tsimas, March 13, 2007

He often states that the destruction of the Greek economy and Greek society began in 1981 with the election of Andreas Papandreou as PM and the party of PASOK.

During the recent New Democracy leadership election, 2015, he accused Syriza of being "a second-time PASOK". He described himself as "liberal" in economic matters, while often stated that is necessary to break the "hegemony of the Left on the ideas" inside the Greek society. He stated "I want to be in Greece, what Nicolas Sarkozy is in France", while rejected the policies of Marine Le Pen and her euroscepticism as anti-European.

Another case of criticism to the Left from Georgiadis' side is about the educational system, and especially the universities system. According to him, the leftists dominate the Greek universities. He has many times expressed his will for the abolition of the "university asylum" (laws that forbid to the Greek police the entry to a Greek university), stating that it is only a tool for the anarchists to burn and destroy the Greek universities.^[18]

Controversy

Georgiadis has been accused by certain columnists of advocacy journalism of promoting through Ellinon Egersis books by far-right author Konstantinos Plevris;^[19] Georgiades has countered that he sells these books like other Greek bookstores, saying that he disagrees with their content.^[20]

Georgiadis has also defended the Ioannis Metaxas, who ruled Greece from 1936 to 1941. He has praised Metaxas for resisting the Italian invasion of Greece.^[21]

Georgiadis has also disputed as a myth the mainstream version of the events of the 1973 Greek National Technical University uprising ("Polytechneio") against the military dictatorship. He has stated that there were not dead students inside the National Technical University of Athens. He claimed also that foreign secret agents were involved in what was originally a spontaneous student youth uprising.^[22]

Georgiadis has also accused Greek Helsinki Watch of targeting him personally and misrepresenting his views.^[23] In addition, he has been accused by his opponents of spreading hatred against Albanian guest workers in Greece. In a his TV talk show, he warned that Albanian immigration to Greece would go as far as electing an Albanian prime minister in 20 years.^[24]

In his TV show Georgiadis has suggested "left-wing ideology has surrendered Greece to the hands of Muslims". In the same episode, Georgiadis claimed that Athens has been transformed into a "Bangladesh" or "Taliban-land".^[25]

Attacks against Georgiades' bookstore

One of the bookstores of Georgiadis publishers (Ekdoseis Georgiadi), in the Exarcheia district of Athens, has been targeted and burnt 17 times by unidentified far-leftist opponents. Georgiades has since moved this bookstore, stating that he did so to protect the anti-riot police that was tasked to protect his business. Nonetheless, a different bookstore of the same publisher was targeted on 15 February 2007, the eighth attack against bookstores of Ekdoseis Georgiadi.^[26][27]

Personal life

He is married to classical composer and reality TV celebrity Eugenia Manolides raising a son and a daughter from her previous marriage,^[28] as well as a young son named Athanasios-Perseas.^[29]

References

Further reading

• Biographical note (in Greek)
• Elliniki Agogi – official site
• "ΘΕΜΑΤΑ ΕΤΥΜΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΟΡΘΟΓΡΑΦΙΑΣ – ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕΙΣ ΣΕ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΑΤΡΕΣ [Topics of Etymology and Orthography – Replies to Archaeolaters]". Archived from the original on 2009-10-24.  (includes criticism of Georgiades)

External links

• Official website (Greek)
• Terms of office of Adonis Georgiadis at the Hellenic Parliament (English)