One year since the death of Nektarios Santoriniou

The memorial service for the completion of one year since the loss of Nektarios Santoriniou was held today at the Holy Church of Taxiarches of Rhodes in the presence of the President of the Parliamentary Group of SYRIZA, Socrates Famellos, a close friend of the deceased. The memorial service was also to be attended by the president of SYRIZA, Stefanos Kasselakis, who was unable to arrive in Rhodes since the plane he was on yesterday afternoon to the airport “DIAGORAS” returned to Athens due to bad weather conditions over the island.

It was Monday 13 February 2023 when Dodecanese MP and former Deputy Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy Nektarios Santorinis breathed his last at the Rhodes Hospital where he was hospitalized after the rapid deterioration of his health after a tough battle with cancer.

The loss of Nektarios Santoriniou shocked not only Rhodes and the Dodecanese, which he represented in the Parliament in the best way during his term of office, but also the whole of Greece.

Nektarios Santorinis fought to the end for the issues of the Dodecanese and by extension the islands of Greece. Despite the progression of his illness and the great battle he was fighting, he never gave up his duties. A few days before he passed away, he had shocked, with an open letter on social media, declaring his presence in the election battle. Present on the winning ballot papers of our party. Present in the effort to overturn the regime that blackens our lives. Always present for the needs of our islands and our islanders,« he wrote in his letter to the Dodecanese.

Nektarios Santorinios was born in 1972 in Rhodes. He was originally from Symi. He was a graduate of the Chemical Engineering Department of the National Technical University of Athens. He was married to Matina Hadjimarkou and was the father of two children.

He was a member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA from 2012 to 2013 and was re-elected at the 2016 Congress.

He was elected MP for the Dodecanese with SYRIZA in the January and September 2015 and 2019 elections. On 5 November 2016, he became Deputy Minister of Shipping and Island Policy in the government of Alexis Tsipras. On 29 August 2018, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Shipping and Island Policy, a position he held until 9 July 2019. He was re-elected as a Member of Parliament in the 2019 elections.

He studied chemical engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and gained many years of work experience in both the private and public sector, mainly in environmental studies and consulting services. Since 2000 he worked in the Planning Office of the Municipality of Rhodes with main tasks in project/action studies and proposals for the integration of actions in European (2nd CSF, 3rd CSF, NSRF, Interreg, URBAN etc.) and national (Theseus, EDF, Green Fund etc.) co-funded programmes.

He was vice-president and secretary of the Board of Directors of the Union of Public Employees of the Dodecanese Union of Engineers of Public Employees of Diploma of Higher Schools and was a member of the delegation of the Panhellenic Federation of EMDYDAS. Since his student years he was active as an active citizen on the left, then a member of SYN, while from 2008 to 2014 he was Coordinator of the Prefectural Committee of SYRIZA South Dodecanese. He was a regional councillor of South Aegean (2012-2014) with the faction «Citizens Against Time» and member of the Economic Committee of the South Aegean Region (2013-2014).

The absence of Nektarios Santoriniou is obvious not only from the local but also from the central political scene where he managed to stand out for his hard work, his knowledge and his progressive ideas.

He fought for the islanders and for the improvement of their everyday life, both as a regional councillor and as a Member of Parliament, knowing well the problems of island Greece. He associated his name and his term of office with the implementation of the Transport Equivalent measure, recognising the need for islanders to travel and to support local businesses.

The transport equivalence scheme was initially introduced and applied to the Aegean islands and then extended to all island regions. It is an important institutional legacy of the late Nektarios Santoriniou to all islanders.
The philosophy of the measure is the right of the islander and the businessman located on the islands to enjoy transport services at the same cost as the resident of Athens and other areas of the rest of mainland Greece.
The Transport Equivalent equates the cost of transporting passengers and goods by sea with the cost that would apply to land transport.

One year after the unfortunate death of Nektarios Santoriniou, no one has forgotten him or his struggles and this is perhaps the greatest legacy for a man who is leaving. May his memory be unchanged and may the path he blazed during his life remain in people's memory. And it is certain that Nektarios Santorininos will not be forgotten because he managed to stand out both as a politician and as a human being.

Mary Fotis