Vangelis Meimarakis

Evangelos-Vasileios "Vangelis" Meimarakis (, ; born 14 December 1953) is a Greek politician who served as the acting President of New Democracy and Leader of the Opposition in Greece from 5 July to 24 November 2015, competing as the challenger to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the September 2015 Greek legislative election. He lost in the run-off of the New Democracy leadership election, 2015–16. Since 2019, he has been a Member of the European Parliament.

Meimarakis previously served as the Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament from 2012 to 2014 and as Minister for National Defence from 2006 to 2009. He was a Member of the Hellenic Parliament for Athens B from 1989 until 2019.

Early life and education

Meimarakis was born in Athens and is of Cretan descent. His father was a Member of the Hellenic Parliament with ERE representing Heraklion.

Meimarakis joined New Democracy in 1974 as a student at Panteion University. That year, he helped found the Youth Organisation of New Democracy (ONNED). Meimarakis did however succeed in slightly increasing the ND vote share from 27.8% to 28.1%. Despite this, their seat tally dropped from 76 to 75.

Meimarakis continued as interim leader following the September election, announcing that a New Democracy leadership election would take place before the end of the year and that he would be a candidate. On 24 November, Meimarakis appointed the secretary of the New Democracy parliamentary group, Giannis Plakiotakis, as a vice president of the party, before resigning and therefore making Plakiotakis the new interim leader.

Member of the European Parliament (2019–present) Meimarakis has been a Member of the European Parliament since the 2019 European elections. He has since been serving on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and its Subcommittee on Security and Defence. Since 2021, he has been part of the Parliament's delegation to the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Within the centre-right European People's Party Group (EPP), Meimarakis is one of the deputies of chairman Manfred Weber.

Personal life Meimarakis is married to Ioanna Kolokota, the daughter of Greek actress Nitsa Marouda, and they have two daughters.

Meimarakis is seen as down-to-earth, with Vassilis Monastiriotis of the London School of Economics commenting that he appeals to: "a broad cross-section: both working-class voters, who see him as a man of the people, and the traditional higher-income New Democracy supporters, who see him as a cunning operator able to hit Tsipras below the belt".