Overview
- His wife, Androulla Vassiliou, said he died peacefully on Jan. 14 after a Jan. 6 hospitalization for a respiratory infection.
- He served as president from 1988 to 1993, during which his administration submitted Cyprus’s application to join the European Union in 1990.
- He later led the island’s EU accession talks from 1998 to 2003, with Cyprus entering the bloc in 2004 and adopting the euro in 2008.
- Drawing on a successful business career, he pushed reforms that included a sales tax with lower income taxes, a streamlined civil service, the first state university, and the end of a state electronic media monopoly.
- He reopened reunification talks with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash that ultimately stalled, and President Nikos Christodoulides praised his legacy of economic modernization and outward-looking diplomacy.