Former minister George Souflias has passed away at the age of 85.
For many years he was a top leader and minister in the ND governments, and even contested the leadership of the party in 1996 against Miltiades Evert and in 1997 against Kostas Karamanlis. In 2009 he retired from active politics in 2009, despite being re-elected as a member of the South-West parliamentary party in Larissa, and since then he has remained out of political action. In recent years, he has had several health problems.
He has been out of politics since 2009.
He was born on 7 July 1941 in Agia Triada Farsala.
The late former minister was a qualified civil engineer at the Polytechnic School of the National Technical University of Athens
Since 1967 he worked as a civil engineer in Larissa, maintaining a design and construction office.
Civil career
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He was elected for the first time as a Member of Parliament of Larissa in 1974 with the New Democracy party. He was re-elected in 1977, where he served as Deputy Minister of the Interior in the governments of Konstantinos Karamanlis and Deputy Minister of Coordination in the government of Georgios Rallis.
He became Minister for the first time as Minister of National Economy in the Tzannetakis government in 1989. In 1990-1993 he served successively as Minister of Finance, Minister of National Economy and Minister of Education. In 1997 he unsuccessfully contested the presidency of the New Democracy party at the fourth party congress.
He resigned from New Democracy in 1998 and rejoined the party in 2001.
In the 2004 parliamentary elections, he was the first in which he was not elected in Larissa, but on the state election ballot. From March 2004 to October 2009, he served as Minister of Environment, Spatial Planning and Public Works in both the first and second Karamanlis governments. In the October 2009 elections, he was elected as a state deputy for New Democracy as head of the ticket, but announced his retirement from politics the day after the elections.
