Today’s French press refers to the special role played by Costas Simitis in the field of the Greek Socialists, but also in relation to Greece’s accession to the euro.

The newspaper Le Monde, in its publication under the title “Former Socialist Prime Minister Costas Simitis, architect of Greece’s entry into the Eurozone, has died” and subtitle “Co-founder of PASOK and then head of the Greek government from 1996 to 2004“, points out that Kostas Simitis helped his country join the monetary union and modernize.

It was one of the last major forms of Greek Socialism, which was undermined by the debt crisis of the 2010s, as stated, among others, by Monde.

The newspaper Liberation stresses that Kostas Simitis passed away on Sunday, closing a special chapter in the history of Greek Socialism and notes that he was the embodiment of the reformist, pro-European Left in Greece. The newspaper underlines that “he will go down in history as the head of the government that imposed Greece’s entry into the Eurozone, with some compromises regarding the truth of the statistics”, underlining, however, that “no one doubts his honesty”.

Finally, the television network Euronews states that among the most important successes of Costas Simitis’s eight-year term as prime minister of his country was the accession of Greece to the Eurozone, as well as the accession of Cyprus to the European Union. As prime minister, Kostas Simitis followed a moderate foreign policy and laid the foundations for the gradual privatization of the Greek public sector, while his goal was to bring economic stability to the country and align it with EU policies, as Euronews points out.