Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s former Prime Minister, has been appointed a short-term Policy Fellow at Harvard University’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) and the Center for Hellenic Studies.

During the spring 2025 academic term, Tsipras will participate in lectures, discussions, and workshops across Harvard’s campuses in Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC. His fellowship will focus on high-level political negotiations, European financial crises, and diplomacy, including his role in the historic Prespa Agreement.

“We are privileged to host Alexis Tsipras, who witnessed and shaped some of the most pivotal moments in Europe’s 21st-century history,” said Daniel Ziblatt, CES Director and Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard.

Tsipras rose to power in 2015 as Greece’s youngest and first left-wing prime minister, leading the radical left SYRIZA party on an anti-austerity platform. He gained international attention for his firebrand rhetoric and defiant stance against Greece’s European creditors, vowing to tear up bailout agreements and end austerity. In July 2015, his government engineered a controversial referendum rejecting EU-imposed austerity measures, only to later agree to a third bailout worth almost €90 billion under mounting financial and political pressure. The move led to a split within SYRIZA .

Tsipras’ tenure was marked by economic turmoil, contentious negotiations with the EU, and a shifting political strategy that saw him first resist and then accept harsh fiscal reforms. His government also brokered the landmark Prespa Agreement, which resolved Greece’s long-standing dispute with its northern neighbor, officially recognizing it as North Macedonia. The deal, hailed internationally as a diplomatic breakthrough, was deeply unpopular in Greece and cost Tsipras significant domestic support.

Despite his controversial legacy, Tsipras remains an influential political figure, serving as a Member of the Hellenic Parliament and Chair of the Committee on the Western Balkans. In 2024, he established the Alexis Tsipras Institute for Peace, Justice, and Sustainable Growth.