Former Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Appointed CES Policy Fellow

Alexis Tsipras, a two-time prime minister of Greece, was appointed as policy fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies and Harvard’s Center for European Studies on Tuesday.

Tsipras — a civil engineer and proponent of anti-austerity measures — will spend the spring semester in Cambridge and at Harvard’s CHS campus in Washington D.C. According to the CES website, fellows use their public service experience to support academic research, deliver lectures, and work with students and faculty throughout the semester.

Past fellows include Metin Hakverdi — a member of the Committee for the Affairs of the European Union — and Sven Rahner, an official at the German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

Tsipras, who was born to a middle-class family in Athens in 1974, began his political activism at an early age. When he was 17, as part of the Communist Youth of Greece, Tsipras led an occupation of his high school against the proposal to privatize education.

He graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor’s in civil engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. Just eight years later, Tsipras was chosen as the leader of the center-left SYRIZA party before his 2009 election to the Hellenic Parliament.

In January 2015, Tsipras was elected the Prime Minister of Greece, becoming the youngest person to assume the title. While his first term was cut short by an August 2015 rebellion by members of parliament, Tsipras returned to office in September of the same year for his second term.

Tsipras advocated for the use of anti-austerity measures to guide Greece out of a financial crisis during his time as Prime Minister. In 2018, Tsipras signed the Prespa Agreement to internationally recognize Macedonia as the Republic of Macedonia, ending a longstanding dispute.

Tsipras was awarded the Nikos Nikiforidis Peace Prize for his role in negotiating the Prespa Agreement. He went on to found the Alexis Tsipras Institute, which advocates for progressive policies in the region.

Daniel Ziblatt, CES Director and government professor, said in a press release that Tspira’s experience handling “financial and refugee crises” will inform his work as a fellow.

“Mr. Tsipras’ presence on campus will allow us to learn from his experiences in high-level political negotiations contending with those challenges as well as from his efforts to offer an alternative to austerity and to facilitate the historic Prespa Agreement,” Ziblatt said in the release.

—Staff writer Rauf Nawaz can be reached at rauf.nawaz@thecrimson.com.