Parliament speaker a guest at Kathimerini for working lunch
As Athens shook to its foundations ahead of the UEFA Champions League final between Liverpool and AC Milan last week, at Kathimerini’s head office in Neo Faliron all was quiet for the visit by Parliament speaker Anna Benaki-Psarouda for a working lunch as the guest of Kathimerini SA’s president, Aristides Alafouzos. The speaker became a professor of criminal law at Athens University in 1978 and a parliamentary deputy in 1981, when the then prime minister Georgios Rallis chose her as candidate for deputy of state, and she was re-elected in the first Athens district in 1985, 1989 and 1990. She has served as deputy and then culture minister, and deputy education minister. When New Democracy returned to government in 2004, the new prime minister, Costas Karamanlis, nominated her to be Greece’s first woman Parliament speaker. Having won the respect and estimation of her colleagues, she has never let her political orientation influence her judgement as speaker. Also present at the meeting at Kathimerini were publisher Antonis Karkayiannis, editoral adviser and commentator Nikos Nikolaou and arts editor Maria Katsounaki.
