Alekos Alavanos

Alekos Alavanos was born in Athens in 1950. He is the son of former Union of the Centre MP Nikolaos Alavanos. He studied at the Economics Department of the Law School of the University of Athens. From 1974 to 1978, he was a member of the Central Council of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) and later a member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), from which he distanced himself in 1991 to join the Coalition of the Left. He is the Greek politician with the longest tenure in the European Parliament (23 years), having first been elected as an MEP in October 1981 and serving until April 2004, when he was compelled to resign after being elected to the Greek Parliament. In June 1991, he became the first Greek to be elected president of a political group in the European Parliament, the "Coalition of the Left," and in July 1994, he was re-elected as vice-president of the political group "European United Left." In 1992, along with PASOK MEP Paraskevas Avgerinos and New Democracy MEP Panagiotis Lamprias, he founded the NGO "Hellenic Caravan of Solidarity," aimed at providing humanitarian aid to war-affected peoples and regions. On December 12, 2004, at the 4th Congress of the Coalition of the Left, he was elected president of the party. He is married and has two daughters.