Hatzimarkakis made ambassador

Mr Venizelos spoke highly of the former Eurodeputy speaking of an “especially experienced European politician with an impressive course in German politics, who is now active in Greek politics.

Mr Hatzmarkakis will be based in Athens and will undertake missions abroad in collaboration with the foreign ministry.

Georgios Chatzimarkakis is a German politician of Greek descent, Member of the European Parliament with the Free Democratic Party of Germany (part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe). He was a 2014 European Parliament candidate for the newly formed party Greek European Citizens (Citizens Europeans Greeks) of Greece, getting 1.44% of the vote, still placing higher than Kouvelis' DIMAR

Chatzimarkakis was born and grew up in Duisburg. In 1993 he graduated as M.A. in political science at the philosophical faculty of the University of Bonn. He supplemented his studies with a visiting research fellowship at St Antony's College, University of Oxford under the auspices of Ralf Dahrendorf in 1995. From 1993 to 1996 Chatzimarkakis worked as a science policy officer at the Bundestag.

From 1996 to 1998, he was member of the planning department of the Foreign Office of Germany. Chatzimarkakis held a lectureship at the University of Duisburg from 1997 to 2001, during which time he also worked on his doctoral thesis on Informational Globalism - A cooperation model of global governance using the example of electronic commerce. In 2011 the University of Bonn revoked his doctoral title. The committee charged him guilty of plagiarism in his thesis. He lost a court case against the decision.

Chatzimarkakis is a member of the national executive committee of the FDP and of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party council since 1995. From 2002 to 2010 he was secretary-general of the FDP regional association of the Saarland. He is a founding member of the Dahrendorfkreis, a wing of the FDP that advocates for sustainable liberalism. After the FDP lost two regional elections in Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg, Chatzimarkakis was one of the main critics of the party leader Guido Westerwelle.

Chatzimarkakis has been a member of the European Parliament since July 2004 for the FDP party of Germany.

Chatzimarkakis wants Greece to stay in the Euro Zone. In September 2011, Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler, wrote an article in the newspaper Die Welt, where he explained possible benefits of a Greek bankruptcy for the rest of the Eurozone. Chatzimarkakis criticized his party leader as not supporting investors to engage in Greece. Rösler was also heavily criticized by German media and major German politicians for his statement. Chatzimarkakis repeatedly criticised the austerity policy of the Troika, he argues it pauperizes the country. In May 2011, in German weekly DIE ZEIT, Chatzimarkakis published an opinion editorial in which he called for a European Marshall Plan for Greece called "Herkules Plan." The plan calls for investments in Health Tourism, Renewable Energies, Shipping and Information technology.

Before his political career in the European Parliament, Chatzimarkakis was managing director of the consultancy "polit data concept" and of the "Perl Academy". He is a founding member of the German-Greek Industrial Association (DHW) and was elected its president in 2004.