While SYRIZA was exchanging “wet fire” with the government over the swimming pool of Stefanos Kasselakis’ summer house in Spetses, Georgetta Lali was stirring up the -relatively calm for the time- waters of Koumoundourou.
Although announcing her intention to take the “orphaned” seat of the resigned Othon Iliopoulos if the four runners-up on the SYRIZA State ballot decline the invitation only confirmed what she had said in March, her brash attitude has put her back in the news . Regardless of what Tsapanidou, Kalogirou, Livadarou and Tsakris will do in the end, the distinguished jurist is the one who will not allow Stefanos Kasselakis to enter the Parliament and obtain the rights deriving from the position of the official opposition president. Even if she is pressured to the contrary, even reporting threats against her.
Against the Kasselakis candidacy
Georgetta Lali, as the choice of Alexis Tsipras, was placed in eighth place on the state ballot for the national elections of 2023. That is, she was right before Stefanos Kasselakis who was ninth on the list.
The reason why it was and remains adamant can be found in the internal party elections of SYRIZA. She herself had openly supported Efi Ahtsioglou, even characterizing the candidacy of the American-born politician as “vacuum of political content”. After the result of the ballot box she completely split her position, speaking of a “sad day” as the future of the party was predicted to be uncertain.
The huge distance from the new leadership of SYRIZA it was later confirmed by the fact that she had already expressed her decision to leave the party before the episodic meeting of the Central Committee at the President and the mass exodus of “Umbrella”!
Now Georgetta Lali identifies with the New Left, which she chose to trust in the European elections. It is therefore reasonably understandable why she is not going to give up her seat in case her turn comes. He will be the twelfth member of her parliamentary group.
Who is Georgetta Lali?
However, the choice of Ms. Lalis by Alexis Tsipras for the State ballot was not done by chance. From 2021 she had been chosen to provide her knowledge, experience and advice to the former prime minister with the aim, as Koumundourou circles leaked at the time, to improve the overall image of SYRIZA. It was the period when the doctor and professor Grigoris Gerotziafas was also very close to Alexis Tsipras.
With a first degree from the Law School of Athens and a master’s degree in European and International Law at the University of Strasbourg, Georgetta Lali has been for decades one of the steadfast executives in the Commission. He worked at the European Commission in total from 1981 to 2016. During these 35 years he started from the bottom and then held a series of managerial and senior positions in different sectors (consumer goods, maritime transport, energy, innovation).
For three years (1989-1992) she also worked closely with the then Greek commissioner, the first woman in office, Vaso Papandreou.
Georgetta Lali was also the president and managing director of Ktimatologio SA, during the three years 2001-2004, having previously secured an unpaid leave from the Commission in order to take over from its infancy and organize this special “portfolio”.
The Task Force in a time of memoranda
She became more widely known when she was chosen to be the head of the Greek office of the Task Force which had been established at the time of the memorandums (2011). It was then presented as the body that would provide the required technical assistance to the government in order to speed up the corrective reforms already imposed by the troika. In essence, it was about the group that supervised everything within the borders, especially the operation of the state machine.
The Greek lawyer and agent, who remained in the same position until 2015, reported directly to the German Horst Reichenbach, the person responsible for the implementation of the medium-term program for the Greek economy.
Immediately after, Ms. Lali spent a year (2015-16) as a European Commission fellow at New York University. Today he is also a special advisor to the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, an independent non-profit organization producing research, ideas and policy proposals.
When he spoke with Stefanos Kasselakis
With Stefanos Kasselakis, the candidate for State parliament came into contact by phone after it became known in March 2024 that Othonas Iliopoulos was thinking of resigning. Not even then did the president of SYRIZA receive the answer he would have liked given that Georgetta Lali informed him that she would make use of the right to occupy an empty seat that would potentially result from the State ballot.
That is, what the president of SYRIZA, forced to to look elsewhere for the “back door” which will put him in Parliament.
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