A Greek former freedom fighter and political prisoner, tortured by the Junta in the 1970s, presently a socialist member of the Greek Parliament, has been nominated as the next EU Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.
Maria Damanaki, 57, has led a career not lacking in controversy: she was elected to the Greek Parliament for the Communist party in 1977, then moved her mandate to the new Synaspismos party, where she was elected president in 1989. When that party lost all its seats in the elections of 1993, many held her responsible, and she resigned. Disagreeing with the new leader on cooperation with the social democratic PASOK, she left Synaspismos in 2003 and was elected for PASOK in the parliamentary elections the same year.
When PASOK won the elections just a few months ago, its leader Giorgos Papandreou forming the new cabinet, Ms. Damanaki remained in the Parliament, possibly waiting to be nominated for the EU Commission. In the Parliament, she had been coordinating education and culture issues for PASOK.
The Commissioners-designate will now appear in individual hearings before Parliamentary committees from 11-19 January next year, the outgoing and incoming Commission President José Manuel Barroso hoping that a vote of consent for the whole group will take place on January 26.
The centre-right European People’s Party, the largest grouping in the EU Parliament, has hinted that it may go after nominees with a Communist past, but Ms. Damanaki may point to the fact that she left the party many years ago, and now represents PASOK, although on its left wing.
During the Athens Polytechnic uprising against the military junta in 1973, she was the voice of the famous “This is the Polytechnic” radio broadcast from within the uprising, calling Greek citizens out to support. She was consequently arrested and tortured by the regime.
Her experience and insights regarding fisheries issues were not immediately known.