Editor
To his supporters, Tzitzikostas is taken into account a celebration stalwart, and was elected governor on three successive events with spectacular assist. Fluent in English and French, he studied at Georgetown University within the U.S. and University College London. Crucially, he additionally has expertise with European establishments, having served as president of the European Committee of the Regions.
But there’s undoubtedly a rightward tilt to why Mitsotakis selected him.
Tzitzikostas invited the now defunct, extreme-right Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn social gathering in 2013 to a public vacation parade in Thessaloniki. When then-mayor Yannis Boutaris protested, he responded: “We all know that he prefers different kinds of parades, which he helps with explicit zeal,” referring to homosexual pleasure parades.
In 2016, on the peak of Europe’s migration disaster, Tzitzikostas abstained from the signing ceremony of a cooperation settlement between Thessaloniki and the UNHCR to enhance situations for asylum seekers. He was accused by Boutaris of “betting on xenophobia.”
Tzitzikostas advised POLITICO he considers himself a center-right and average politician, mentioning his electoral successes.
“I imagine that my European expertise, and specifically my expertise within the presidency of an official European establishment of the EU, contributed considerably to my choice,” he mentioned, including that in 2020 he was additionally unanimously elected by all political teams as president of the European Committee of the Regions.
