With Andreas Kondylis, Mayor of Alimos, and Moses Elisaf, Mayor of Ioannina, our group is now also represented in Greece, further enlarging the wider liberal family at the local and regional level.
Kondylis is Mayor of Alimos, a city of 43.000 inhabitants, in the region of South Athens. Alimos also serves as the Greek headquarters of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). His policy experiences are in migration, security, enlargement, environment as well as waste management and culture. His main priorities during this CoR mandate will be, among others, the debate on the future of Europe in schools and migration management (access to EU funding, role of local and regional authorities,…)
Elisaf is a distinguished pathologist, academic and was elected Mayor of Ioannina, a municipality of 112.000 inhabitants, in June 2019. He is the first Jewish Mayor in the history of Greece, though he considers himself secular and does not observe Jewish religious law. He previously represented the small Jewish community in Ioannina for two decades. “Despite anti-Semitism and the rise of racism in our times, the citizens elected a Jew as their mayor, evaluating my personality, our plan for the city’s future, our candidates, our ethos during the election campaign. Apparently, their decision was based on proper criteria and not on what a person’s beliefs or differences are.” For his city, he will be focusing on road construction, waste management, improving public services and ending ‘clientelism’.
Mayor Moses Elisaf and Mayor Andreas Kondylis
The focus for both mayors at this time is of course fighting COVID-19 in their municipalities. In Alimos for instance, Kondylis launched a hotline and website for people confined due to illness, the elderly, single parent households or people in quarantine. His public social services team also brings essential pharmaceuticals, care and supplies to recipients’ homes. More measures by these two mayors and the rest of Renew Europe CoR members can be found on our dedicated COVID-19 webpage.
Andreas Kondylis will join CoR’s Commission for Citizenship, Governance and External Relations (CIVEX) and Social Affairs, Education, Culture and Research (SEDEC), while Elisaf will join the Economic Affairs (ECON) and SEDEC Commissions.
