DimitriosEvrigenis
*Biography
The late Professor Dimitrios Evrigenis was born in Thessaloniki.
He studied law at the Law School of the Aristotle University and received his doctorate there. In 1958 he became a lecturer at the same University. In 1961 he was appointed as a professor and taught for four years until he was tenured in 1965.
In 1967 he was appointed General Secretary of the Ministry of Northern Greece’s interim government. In 1968 he was arrested, imprisoned, exiled and suspended from his university position because he was a member of the Democratic Defense.
In 1974 he was elected a member of the Hellenic Parliament (1974-1977) and served as Deputy Minister of National Education and Religious Affairs (1974-1975) contributing to the establishment of the Law School of the Democritus University in Thrace.
In 1977 he founded the Center for International and European Economic Law (CIEEL) of which was he was first the Secretary and then the Director.
At the same time he was elected Judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and in 1982 he began serving in the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
In 1984 he was elected a member of the European Parliament and quickly became a prominent member. On January 26th 1986 Evrigenis died suddenly in Strasbourg at the age of 61.
His multifaceted actions remain unsurpassed. In his lifetime he was a Professor, a MP, a Minister of MEP, a Judge at the ECtHR, and the Director of a Research Centre.
With Evrigenis’ support many of his assistants went on to become teachers, judges, or officials in the European institutions. Moreover, at least 40 young people who never knew Evrigenis have asssociated their careers with him by becoming beneficiaries of a scholarship in his name (the Evrygeneio). Since 1987 the CIEEL grants these scholarships and continues to provide, despite any individuals economic crisis, making the name Dimitrios Evrigenis still relevant despite the fact that 27 years have passed since his death.
*The information of this short biography is based on the biography written in the summer of 1990 by the late Professor Argyris Fatouros in the volume of the University of Aristotle dedicated to Dimitrios Evrigenis «Annales», pp. 9-10.
DEDICATION
DemetriosEvrigenis
The Jean Monnet Chair of the Department of International and European Studies, University of Macedonia, organized a three-day International Jean Monnet Conference on “Advances and Challenges in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice in the EU” in Thessaloniki on 14-16 February 2013. The conference was devoted to the memory of the late MEP and Judge ECtHR, Professor Dimitrios Evrigenis. His diverse work directly relates to many aspects of the ESDP, as found in the processing of the program of the conference, including:
- The Declaration against Racism and Xenophobia adopted by the European Parliament after his death became known throughout Europe as the “Report Evrigenis” and is today the basis of the Area of Freedom.
- His contribution to Immigration Law, a subject he pioneered at the Thessaloniki Law School and which is currently being influenced by the immigration policies of the European Union.
- His in depth studies of Private International Law which today is one of the two components of the Area of Justice.
- His enthusiasm for the electronic processing of legal data, which is currently booming in the Area of Security
- And especially his love for the protection of human rights.
His ideas cannot be forgotten. Dimitrios Evrigenis who served on both the Council of Europe and the European Parliament of the EU ), he was a pioneer in relation to the current provision of the Treaty of Lisbon (2009) for the EU’s accession to the European Convention of Human Rights Council of Europe and of the cooperation between the two international organizations for human rights.
Despina Anagnostopoulou
Assistant Professor
Jean Monnet Chair
Fr scholar Demetrius Evrigenis
Fr Sci. Al. CIEEL