As Prime Minister of Greece from October 2009 to November 2011, George Papandreou has been at the forefront of the recent global financial crisis. He was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s ‘‘Top 100 Global Thinkers’’ in 2010 for ‘‘making the best of Greece’s worst year.”

Papandreou also held the portfolio of foreign minister from 1999 to 2004. His administration spearheaded “Agenda 2014,” an initiative that seeks to integrate the Western Balkan states into Europe by 2014. As foreign minister, he was instrumental in the successful negotiation of rapprochement with Turkey, which had been an old rival of Greece.

Papandreou was also a key player in the negotiations that led to Turkey’s candidacy for membership in the European Union in 1999 and Cyprus’s entry into the EU in 2004. He has also held other government posts, including under-secretary for cultural affairs and minister for education. Following his grandfather Georgios Papandreou and his father Andreas Papandreou, he was the third member of the Papandreou family to serve as the country’s prime minister.

Born on June 26, 1952 in Minnesota, Papandreou spent his childhood in the United States and Canada, until his family returned to Greece in 1961. After completing his university studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts and graduate studies at the London School of Economics, Papandreou won a parliamentary seat for the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) in 1981. He was elected leader of the party in 2004, a position he kept until March 2012. Papandreou is also president of the Socialist International, an international association of political parties, of which PASOK is a member.

“We have created an uber-class, a super-class, that is beyond democratic control of our nations.”