Leonidas Kouris
Encyclopedia
Leonidas Kouris (born in Athens, 1949) is a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

; former mayor of Athens and prefect of Eastern Attica.

Educational and professional background

Kouris graduated from the Varvakeio
Varvakeio
Varvakeio High School is a public Greek high school located in Psychiko. It was initially founded by Ioannis Varvakis, who donated a big part of his fortune to the state, in order to build a high school, that everyone could attend without paying, that would be the best in Greece...

 high school and has degrees in mineralogical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens
National Technical University of Athens
The National Technical University of Athens , sometimes simply known as Athens Polytechnic, is among the oldest and most prestigious higher education institutions of Greece....

 and in economics from the Athens University of Economics and Business. He received postgraduate training in the Administration of Enterprises and Regional Growth.

Kouris is a member of the Technical and Economic Chamber, and of many Greek and foreign scientific associations. He has been elected repeatedly to the boards of the Technical Chamber of Greece
Technical Chamber of Greece
The Technical Chamber of Greece is the Greek professional organization that serves as the official technical advisor of the Greek state and is responsible for awarding professional licences to all practicing engineers in Greece. It is a public legal entity with elected administration, supervised...

 and of the Association of Engineers. Since 1971, he has been an executive in large private and public enterprises, such as the Public Power Corporation
Public Power Corporation
The Public Power Corporation S.A. is the biggest electric power company in Greece. It is controlled to an extent by the government, and it produces and supplies electricity to all the country.-History:PPC was founded by the Greek government in 1950...

. He was an advisor in the Ministries of Industry, Energy and Finance between 1977 and 1981.

Political career

From 1986 Kouris served as Municipal Advisor of Athens under Mayors Miltiadis Evert
Miltiadis Evert
Miltiadis Evert , was a Greek politician, a member of Parliament, Government minister, and ex-chairman of the New Democracy party.Evert was born in Athens, Greece, the son of the Athens police chief Angelos Evert. He studied at the Athens School of Economics and Business Science...

 and Antonis Tritsis
Antonis Tritsis
Antonis Tritsis was a Greek politician and urban planner, born and raised in the town of Argostoli on the island of Kefalonia.A founding member of PASOK, he was elected MP in the Greek Parliament with PASOK in 1981 and 1985 and served as Minister of Urban Planning, and Minister for National...

, as Vice-Mayor of Athens from 1987 to 1992, overseeing the city's technical, administrative and economic services, and was elected Mayor in April 1992, after the death of Antonis Tritsis. During his term, he put forward a wide program of work, the construction of Athens tram being a key project.

In 1994, to his consternation, Kouris failed to run as New Democracy
New Democracy (Greece)
New Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...

 candidate mayor for Athens, with Dimitris Avramopoulos
Dimitris Avramopoulos
Dimitris Avramopoulos is a Greek politician and diplomat. He was Mayor of Athens for eight years.-Personal information:He was born in Athens in 1953. He originated from Ilia, Arkadia. He served his military service in the Greek Air Force , based in Athens and in the NATO Headquarters in Brussels....

 earning the nomination instead. In 1995, Mayor Avramopoulos awarded his predecessor, Kouris, the Golden Medal of Athens, a major honour of this municipality.

As head of [KEDKE], he pursued the enlargement of the administrative autonomy and financial self-reliance of municipalities and their communities. During his tern, the elected prefectural
Prefectures of Greece
During the first administrative division of independent Greece in 1833–1836 and then again from 1845 until their abolition with the Kallikratis reform in 2010, the prefectures were the country's main administrative unit...

 self-government by the people was first introduced in Greece.

Kouris was head of the delegation of Greek local self-government in the Council of Europe (1993-1994) and a member of the presiding board of the Committee of Regions of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 (1994-1995).

From 1995-1997, he was an advisor to the leader of the New Democracy
New Democracy (Greece)
New Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...

 party and Chairman of the KETA (Central Committee of Local Self-government) of New Democracy. In 1997, he was elected on the party's Central Committee. From 1997-2000, he was a Deputy from Attica
Attica
Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...

. He was elected Chairman of Internal commission of New Democracy and appointed special rapporteur on prefectural and local self-government in the Budget. He served on the Permanent Committees of Economic Affairs, Internal–Public Administration, and Educational Affairs.

He run unsuccessfully for a parliamentary seat in the 2000 election. He returned to local politics and in October 2002
Greek local elections, 2002
The 2002 Greek local elections elected representatives to Greece's super-prefectures, 54 prefectures, provinces, and approximately 1,033 communities and municipalities.The local elections in Greece traditionally occur during the month of October....

was elected Prefect of Eastern Attica (50.1%) -himself resident of [Pikermi] for 30 years- and for a second term in the 2006 election (54.6%), in which however he exacerbated building disorder in the district by expeditiously legalising thousands of illegally constructed acres of land (Planning and haste legalisation of illegally constructed land in Eastern Attica).

After the October 2009 elections, despite the fact that he was the only New Democracy prefect in Attica, he abstained from taking part in his party's bid for ENAE, issuing later a statement in defence of his non-participation decision pleading his commitment to principles.

Kouris has also been linked in 1998, 2002 and 2006 for running as Super-Prefect of Athens and Piraeus.
He is married to Aggela Bas Xintara with whom he has three children, Eirianna, Vasilis and Nikos.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK