Vasso Papandreou: The other side of the Iron Lady – “Did Vasso agree?” –

I have never believed that a female politician was given the title “Iron Lady”. Even when I met Margaret Thatcher or Jacques Delors’ daughter Martine Aubrey. Nor, of course, did I ever imagine <a href="https://www.world-today-news.com/pasok-how-will-it-celebrate-50-years-the-surprises-prepared-by-harilaou-trikoupi-2024-09-04-135614/" title="PASOK: How will it celebrate 50 years – The surprises prepared by Harilaou Trikoupi
– 2024-09-04 13:56:14″>Vasso Papandreou as the “Iron Lady of PASOK”, as her various comrades called her at the time. Or even as… anti-Thatcher, as the economic editors called her. After all, when he came into conflict with Margaret Thatcher, when the then British Prime Minister refused to approve a document on the European Social Charter, it was not a conflict between two “Iron Ladies”, not at all, it was a conflict between policies, of neo-conservatism and of democratic progress. This was also the reason why, with the Battle of the Charter, she was given the designation “Caryatid of Democracy”.

A characterization that she liked, she even had the relevant clipping from the newspaper “To Vima” that she wrote in a frame in her office at the Ministry of Development, from 1996 to 1999. “Caryatid of the Republic”, this description suited her, few they knew, but when she was called that she bowed her head modestly and smiled.

The European Union honored her struggle for social rights and for the battle she fought for the Charter and in 2019 the Commission commemorated her in a post on social media, underlining that “in 1989 Vaso Papandreou became one of the first women commissioners. Her portfolio included education, training and youth.” The portfolio that Vasso Papandreou had assumed in 1989 in the then EEC concerned the areas of Employment, Labor Relations and Social Affairs, Human Resources, Education and Training and Gender Equality. At the same time, Christiane Scrivener was also appointed as a commissioner, making them the first two female commissioners in the EEC. In fact, the French politician also died this year, on April 8, at the age of 98.

The one who brought her to PAK (later PaSoK), when she was still studying under Andreas Papandreou, was Kimon Koulouris. Papandreou immediately recognized her competitiveness. He then fought against the Junta of the Colonels, in which Melina Merkouri was the protagonist.

In the post-colonial Greek political life, it was not at all easy to be a female politician and even a minister, a close associate of the Prime Minister, a member of the party’s strongest body, that of the Executive Office. Certainly the presence of Vassos, a woman in the Greek political scene elevated the woman and gave many women to engage in politics.

I remember the meetings of the Executive Office, the most difficult, among the first-class executives of the Movement, Costas Simitis, Akis Tsochatzopoulos, George Gennimatas, Costas Laliotis and others passionately discussing the recognition of the national resistance, always having in front of it elements that facilitated her proposals. And Andreas Papandreou, to take a deep puff on his pipe and before the meeting of this supreme body ends, to ask: “Are we all in agreement, and Vaso?”

But maybe this? what remains most etched in my mind is the image of Vasa at the infamous KO meeting. All the journalists were sitting in the back rows and were surprised to see Vaso suddenly get up from her seat, cross the hall walking with a firm, determined step, some looking at her with wonder, others with suspicion (ready to attack her) and others with admiration. He approached Papandreou and handed him an ultimatum note (they called it) for the then leadership of PaSoK. An incredible move at the time, with Costas Simitis and Paraskeias Avgerinos, as well as Pagalos smiling with satisfaction.

A year earlier Mrs. Papandreou had organized at her house in Chalandri the so-called “dinner of four” with the participation of Messrs. K. Simitis, Th. Pagalos and Par. Avgerinos. It was the beginning of the path that led Mr. Simitis to the prime ministership and the leadership of PaSoK.

As the president of the Inter-Party Economy Committee, he was almost always opposed to any decisions of (until former Minister of Economy) Mr. G. Papakonstantinou. “You are leading us into a collective depression” he told him at a KTE Economy. At another meeting, in which the Medium Term was discussed, she told him: “In October 2009 I was in your office, I told you to take action and you treated me like a woof”, prompting the approval of several of her fellow MPs.