Pavlos Xanthoulis
When I heard Cyprus’s former First Lady, Androulla Vassiliou, publicly invoke “prestige” as one of the main reasons she needs a police escort, so that an officer can effectively serve as her chauffeur and drive her to embassies and event venues, I was reminded of an incident that took place 18 years ago.
It was during Mrs. Vassiliou’s hearing before the European Parliament on April 1, 2008, when she was being considered to replace Markos Kyprianou as European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection. And rather than simply recounting from memory what happened, I formally requested and obtained the video of Androulla Vassiliou’s hearing from the European Parliament. Eighteen years later, the video is no longer posted online. It is tucked away in the European Parliament’s archives instead (copyright @European Union).
The similarities in the way Mrs. Vassiliou has spoken about “prestige” suggest that her political education has, sadly, remained unchanged over the years. If nothing else, her political shortcomings appear to have become a defining feature that has stood the test of time.
It was April 1, 2008, when the much-loved AKEL MEP at the time, Adamos Adamou, asked a question about organ donation and the trafficking of human organs. The Commissioner-designate answered the question while consulting her notes, then decided to improvise. She did much the same thing when she spoke to Sigma a few days ago, explaining that she also sees a police presence as a matter of “prestige” and therefore needs an escort when attending embassies and events.
During that improvisation on April 1, 2008, however, Mrs. Vassiliou showed that she can lose all sense of proportion not only in front of a television camera, but also in the European Parliament.
And so, Mrs. Vassiliou told the MEPs:
“I must tell you that some time ago, the girl I have with me, who is from the Philippines, told me that the school her children attend was closed for two months because three little children were stolen from the school grounds in order for their organs to be removed.”
So even when condemning the trafficking of human organs, Mrs. Vassiliou could not avoid elitism. In making the point that children, particularly in Asia, fall victim to organ traffickers, she chose to add a detail that had no place in a European Parliament hearing. She explained that she had not come to Brussels alone from Cyprus to take up a position as a European Commissioner. She had “a girl with her” who was “from the Philippines”, meaning a domestic worker.
Why, then, did Mrs. Vassiliou feel the need to tell the European Parliament and its MEPs that she had brought a “girl” from the Philippines with her to Brussels?
The only thing that is certain is that several foreign MEPs, as well as some of the interpreters, were left stunned. This is evident from the Greek-to-English interpreter, who chose to omit Mrs. Vassiliou’s reference to the “girl’s” nationality rather than translate it. That was clearly not accidental. Before and after the reference to the “girl” from the Philippines, the interpreter did not miss a single word of Mrs. Vassiliou’s remarks.
There was also a second detail that was jarring, quite apart from the substance of what she said: the word “girl” itself. It certainly sounds better than the deeply belittling and dismissive Greek term kopelouda, but it still creates an uncomfortable impression, suggesting a kind of class-based superiority and elitism.
The verb Mrs. Vassiliou used was equally jarring. Instead of saying that the three children had been kidnapped, she said they had been “stolen.” Anyone who speaks Greek knows the difference between the word for kidnapping, which applies to people, and the word for theft, which applies to objects.
I consider Mrs. Vassiliou’s reference to the children being “stolen” to have been a verbal slip rather than an attempt to turn children into objects. But for at least 18 years, I have had the impression that her political education has remained at exactly the same level as her command of the Greek language.
After all, “prestige” in Greek means status, standing and social recognition. None of those things is earned through a police escort. Nor are they earned by publicly displaying domestic assistance before the European Parliament.
