Evangelos-Vasileios Meimarakis, commonly known as Vangelis Meimarakis, was born in
Athens on 14 December 1953. He is married to Ioanna Kolokota and has two daughters, Elina
and Rena.
He holds a law degree from Athens Law School and a Political Science and Public
Administration Degree from the Panteion University of Political Science. He is a lawyer at the
Greek Supreme Court and Member of the Athens Bar Association.
His political career began when he became a founding member of the youth wing of Nea
Demokratia, ONNED. In 1984, he was elected President of ONNED, which, under his
leadership, joined various International Youth Organisations such as the European Democrat
Students (EDS) and the Democrat Youth Community of Europe (DEMYC).
From 1984 to this date, he is a Member of the Executive Committee of Nea Demokratia.
In 1989, he was elected, for the first time, as Member of the Hellenic Parliament and was
constantly elected until he resigned in 2019 to run for the European elections.
During his long and successful political career, he was appointed as Secretary for Culture and
Shadow-Minister for Infrastructure. He also served as Deputy-Minister for Culture responsible
for Sports.
When Nea Demokratia was the lead-opposition party in 2001, he was appointed as Chairman
of the Organising Committee of the Nea Demokratia Extraordinary Congress. After its
completion, he was elected as the First Secretary-General of the party. During this period, Nea
Demokratia secured significant electoral victories.
From 2006 to 2009, he served as Minister of National Defence and in parallel was a Member
of the Greek Delegation to NATO. In 2009, he was appointed as Member of the Greek
Delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. During 2010-2012, he
served as President of the Konstantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy (KKID).
In 2012, he was elected as Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament with a high parliamentary
majority, in a seven-party Parliament and three-party coalition government.
In 2015, he became the President of Nea Demokratia and thus, leader of the opposition upon
the proposal of the Parliamentary Group of Nea Demokratia.
As of July 2019, Vangelis MEIMARAKIS serves as a Member of the European Parliament
(MEP). He was elected as Vice-Chair of the EPP Group in the European Parliament,
responsible for relations with National Parliaments of the EPP political family.
He is Head of the EPP Group Greek Delegation in the European Parliament and Member of
the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE)
and the Delegation for relations with the United-States (D-US). He is Substitute Member of
the Delegation for relations with Australia and New Zealand (DANZ).