Nikos Kotzias

On 17 October 2018 Kotzias submitted his resignation, a day after a cabinet meeting during which he clashed over the Prespa agreement with Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, who has opposed the deal. He was succeeded by then PM Alexis Tsipras.

In one of his interviews in Spiegel Online on 9 February 2015 he noted that he is an atheist.

Since January 2015 Kotzias is Foreign Minister in a cabinet in coalition with Independent Greeks, a right wing conservative party that also opposes austerity.

On 27 January 2015, Nikos Kotzias was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs, despite not being a member of parliament. During the ceremony of the handing of the ministry, Kotzias gave a notion of his political approach stating: "We look forward to bridges with the new emerging world. We do not see our membership in European institutions as conflictual to our relations with emerging powers."

In the same night of Kotzias's appointment, the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement, issuing Greece's unwillingness to agree to key passage of statement, delaying agreement for further EU sanctions against Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine, before the extraordinary meeting of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers, which was scheduled on 29 January 2015 in Brussels. The new minister argued that "certain of our partners attempted to present us with a fait accomplis before the new government had even been sworn". He also underlined that Greece "would not relinquish its sovereignty and active contribution to European policy as this would be an act that circumvents a vital principle of Europeanism."

After the announcement for early legislative elections on 20 September 2015, Nikos Kotzias was nominated as a candidate on SYRIZA national ballots after the agreement of Pratto to co-ally with SYRIZA, and he was elected as a member of the Greek Parliament.

On 23 September 2015, after the formation of a coalition government between SYRIZA and Independent Greeks, Kotzias was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs for a second time, succeeding the caretaker minister Petros Molyviatis.

In September 2012, Kotzias founded the progressive and democratic political movement named Pratto, whose purpose is "to form a radical, patriotic, democratic and social movement, advocating the interests of the country, the Greek people, the workers and the Greek natural environment". Current Minister of Public Order and Citizen Protection and MP Nikos Toskas is also a founding member of Pratto.

Kotzias studied Economics (Diploma) and Political Science and Philosophy (MA) in Athens and Law and Politics of European Integration (PhD and Post-doc) at the University of Giessen in Germany. According to his online biography worked as a researcher and taught at the Universities of Marburg, Oxford and Cambridge and he holds from 2008 on the position of Professor of Political Theories and International and European Studies at the University of Piraeus. He has specialized in issues of policy and political systems, societies and foreign policy of Brazil, India and Russia. He has been a member of many globally recognized international research teams on contemporary issues.

He was also the Greek representative in the 2002 Helsinki agreement which regulated Turkey's candidacy status for EU membership and paved the way for Cyprus' accession in 2004.

Kotzias played an important role during the "spring" of the Greek-Turkish relations in 1999, implementing the "earthquake diplomacy" at the time when the two countries were struck by catastrophic earthquakes. He has supported the Greek-Turkish rapprochement as a new policy doctrine and introduced the confidence-building measures (CBMs).

From 1993 to 2008, he was in the diplomatic service in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the rank of ambassador beginning in 2005. As a chief diplomat, he was involved in negotiations on the Amsterdam Treaty, Agenda 2000, the Greek-Turkish relations and the European Constitution.

Kotzias was active as a student in the Lambrakis Democratic Youth and during the right-wing military dictatorship in Greece was a member of the Communist Youth of Greece. He was a secretary of the Federation of Greek Fraternities in Germany as well as the coordination point of the anti-dictatorship student organizations. Later he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece and was repeatedly condemned by military courts. During his years in the Greek Communist Party, he became the party's ideological instructor. He was often praised for his masterful rhetoric and his profound knowledge of Marxist philosophy. During the 1980s, he praised the Polish government's crackdown on the Solidarity movement.

Nikolaos Kotzias, GCM (Greek: Νικόλαος Κοτζιάς ; born 21 December 1950) is a diplomat and politician who as Minister for Foreign Affairs of Greece from 23 September 2015 until his resignation on 17 October 2018; previously he held the same post from 27 January to 28 August 2015. Nominated by SYRIZA, he was sworn in as a member of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in January 2015.