Asssistant Professor Vassilis Voutsakis participated as speaker at the Conference of the Parliamentary Budget Office on the revision of the Constitution

Our Partner Assistant Professor Vassilis Voutsakis, participated as speaker at the Conference "Economic Dimensions of the Revision of the Constitution in Crisis Situations", which was organised by the Parliamentary Budget Office and held on 15th and 16th of December 2014 in the Senate Hall of the Hellenic Parliament. At the opening ceremony of the Conference, which included five sessions, Mr. Vangelis Meimarakis, Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament, delivered a welcome and opening address. Among the main speakers of the conference were politicians (Prof. Gikas Hardouvelis, Minister of Finance, Prof. Euclid Tsakalotos and Prof. George Stathakis, MPs of SYRIZA party, Mr. Konstantinos Skrekas, Minister of Development, and Ass. Prof. Andreas Loverdos, Minister of Education) and academics (Prof. A. Lyberaki Prof. G. Pagoulatos, Prof. P. Gklavinis. Prof. P. Tinios etc.).
Prof. Voutsakis participated in the last session of the Conference, entitled "Issues with regard to the Operation of the Political System", along with Prof. Prokopis Pavlopoulos, MP of N.D. party, Prof. Stavros Tsakyrakis and Ass. Prof. Penelope Fountedaki. In the framework of the modernisation of our institutions, Prof. Voutsakis proposed the abolishment of a constitutional provision, the provision according to which constitutional rights have immediate effect on private law rights (according to the theory of Drittwirkung). Focusing on the example of economic freedom he showed how the consideration of this constitutional right as a source of the Civil Code private autonomy distorts the specificity of the latter and opens the way to state paternalism.