Alexis Tsipras is a Member of the Hellenic Parliament for SYRIZA and served as Prime Minister of Greece from 2015-2019. Tsipras will be a short-term, resident Policy Fellow of Harvard's Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) and The Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) during the spring of 2025.
In 2006, Tsipras ran for Mayor of Athens as the candidate for SYRIZA, finishing third but nearly quadrupling the party’s share of the vote. In 2008, he was elected leader of SYRIZA, becoming the youngest political party leader in his country’s history. He was elected as a Member of the Hellenic Parliament for the first time in 2009.
After winning 36% of the vote in the January 2015 elections, at age 40 Tsipras became the youngest and first left-wing Prime Minister of Greece. He was elected on an anti-austerity platform of renegotiating the bailout agreement imposed on Greece by the “Troika” of the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). After several months of tumultuous negotiations and a climactic referendum, in snap parliamentary elections in September 2015, Tsipras won a second consecutive electoral victory with 35% of the vote.
Tsipras is the 2024 recipient of the Nikos Nikiforidis Peace Prize for his instrumental role in brokering the Prespa Agreement which resolved a long-standing dispute between Greece and North Macedonia. He is a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and serves as the Chair of the Committee on the Western Balkans. In 2024, he founded the Alexis Tsipras Institute for Peace, Justice, Sustainable Growth with the mission to develop and promote progressive policies and initiatives for peace, justice, and sustainable growth in Greece, Europe, and the wider region.
