Former Cypriot President George Vassiliou has died, aged 94, at Nicosia General Hospital.
The sad news was announced by his wife, ex-Commissioner of the EU, Androulla Vassiliou, on the social media platform X (formerly, Twitter). She said that after two difficult years health-wise, her husband of fifty-nine years has passed away in peace. She said that he was a great husband, parent and person, and had nothing but love and kindness for Cyprus and its citizens.
Not only was Vassiliou very famous, he was a prominent figure in the history of Cypriot polity. While being the son a famous leftist, he always kept his political practice free from the vagaries of ideology.
Vassiliou?s educational background includes studies at London, Vienna, Geneva, and Hungary. He came back to Cyprus and founded the Middle East Marketing Research Bureau – a pioneer in market research in the country and region at large.
He became the President of Cyprus in 1988 with the support of AKEL – and stunned everybody with his Western-leaning liberal policies. His term, which lasted till 1993 were peppered with reform measures – most important of all being introducing VAT to keep Cyprus in line with then EU standards. He also founded the University of Cyprus in 1992.
In 1990, Vassiliou led the application Cyprus joining the EEC, the first ever step towards its integration as a European country. While he lost the next elections in 1993 by a small margin, he retained his strategic importance and led the team which secured Cyprus membership of the EU.
