Greek Economy and Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis was on Thursday elected president of the Eurogroup, the influential body of eurozone finance ministers, prevailing over Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem in a vote held during the group’s meeting in Brussels.
Pierrakakis succeeds Ireland’s Paschal Donohoe, who unexpectedly announced his resignation last month to take up a senior role at the World Bank. His election marks a significant milestone for Greece: it is the first time a Greek official has assumed the Eurogroup presidency, coming 16 years after the start of the country’s debt crisis.
The result was announced by Cyprus Finance Minister Makis Keravnos, who chaired the session, alongside European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis. Pierrakakis will become the Eurogroup’s fifth president, following Jean-Claude Juncker, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Mário Centeno and Donohoe.
A US-trained technocrat with a background in computer science and public policy, the 42-year-old Pierrakakis has held several key positions in recent Greek governments. Before becoming finance minister in March, he served as minister of digital governance—playing a central role in Greece’s rapid digital transformation during the pandemic—and later as education minister, where he backed controversial legislation enabling the creation of private universities.
Pierrakakis holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a master of science in technology and policy from MIT, along with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Athens University of Economics and Business. He has also served as research director at diaNEOsis, an Athens-based think tank.
His political trajectory began in the center-left: he was a member of PASOK’s political council and central committee in 2012 and ran as a European Parliament candidate for the PASOK-led Elia alliance in 2014. During the New Democracy–PASOK coalition government, he took part in Greece’s negotiations with its international lenders, selected by then–deputy prime minister Evangelos Venizelos.
Pierrakakis joined New Democracy in 2015 to support Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s leadership bid. Following the party’s election victory in 2019, he was appointed minister of digital governance and later minister of education after New Democracy’s re-election in 2023. He assumed the finance portfolio in March of this year.
