The founder and CEO of New Europe, Basil Coronakis, a distinguished and internationally well-known journalist, writer and businessman, passed away on Wednesday, December 1, 2021, in Athens at the age of 82, after a long battle with cancer. The funeral will take place on Saturday, December 4, at 11:00, at the Church of Metamorphosis of Sotiros Kefalari, in the Kefalari Park, in Kifissia. The burial will take place in his birthplace in Mesaria, Corfu, on Sunday, December 5.

Born on the island of Corfu on October 2, 1939, the father of 2 children was a larger-than-life individual who confronted every aspect of his life and profession with unbridled passion and rigor.  

Active from a young age, he studied Hydraulic Engineering at the Federico II University of Naples, Italy.  After completing his studies he worked as a scientific researcher at the National Research Council of Italy from 1965-1970.

 From 1970 to 1978 he was employed by the United States Government and worked at the US Embassy in Athens as a Foreign Service National staffer.

In 1978, Coronakis made the transition to journalism and publishing, where he distinguished himself and was also recognized as a publisher and entrepreneur. That year he founded “Greece’s Weekly for Business and Finance,” a color magazine like The Economist, with material in English that was mainly aimed at the diplomatic and expatriate community of Greece.

In the early years of his publishing career, Coronakis also worked as a journalist for the Athens-based Kathimerini newspaper, where he maintained a column entitled Isidora’s Notebook, which became one of the leading political columns of the late 1980s and early 1990s. In addition to this, he also worked as a correspondent for many international media outlets, including CNN and Il Sole 24 Ore.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Coronakis organized and led a series of conferences entitled Doing Business in… which were successfully held in Greece, South Africa, Romania and Bulgaria.

With an inexhaustible love for journalism, in 1993, he founded the newspaper New Europe and was its publisher and CEO until 2008. These activities also coincided with the publishing of The European Handbook, a book that explains the structure of the European Union’s institutions. The book’s prologue was written by former British Labour MP, Neil Kinnock. The book was also translated into Slovak.

 From 2008 to 2012, he served as Ambassador of the Regional Cooperation Council in Brussels as a nominee of the New Democracy Greek government led by then Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. He returned to Greece in 2012 as the publisher of New Europe while at the same time acting as CEO of the New Europe Group.

As a journalist, Coronakis covered many cases of mismanagement, corruption and malpractice in the European institutions, which became one of the main beats of his weekly political newspaper, New Europe. Some of the cases, including a scandal involving Athens International Airport and Dalligate – the case that led to the dismissal of Maltese European Union Commissioner John Dalli – were widely covered in the press.

In April 2016, Coronakis wrote his second book, The Deep State of Europe, which examined the corruption and mismanagement taking place in the European Union and its institutions.

Coronakis was awarded the title of Cavaliere Ufficiale by the Italian government, and in 2010 he was awarded the Médaille d’Or by the Crans Montana Forum.

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By: Nicholas Waller
Title: New Europe’s founder Basil Coronakis passes away at age 82
Sourced From: www.neweurope.eu/article/new-europes-founder-basil-coronakis-passes-away-at-age-82/
Published Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2021 18:47:10 +0000

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