UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY
2nd International Conference on Economic and Social History
"Markets" and Politics
Private interests and public authority (18th-20th centuries)
Volos, 10-12 February 2012
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Abstracts
- Eleni Beneki Ship-owners and politics: the case of Epaminondas K. Empiricos
The presented paper seek to give insights of the close relation of ship-owning, as a lever of the maritime industry, one of the basic sectors of the greek economy, to the politics and the active political life, and to record the interaction between persons and interests, on the institutional and legislative level. Τhe analysis is based on the case study of Epameinondas C. Embiricos, who was involved in the maritime industry and the banking sector, served as a Ministry of Naval Affairs and passed a modernizing law regarding the greek maritime industry.
Embiricos family, a ship-owners family coming from Andros, has been active in politics, both on local and national level, for more than a century; they moved from local aristocracy to the national, economic and political, elit and numerous members of it were been elected in high political places within a century.
Epameinondas Embiricos (1858-1924) was the younger son of Constantine (1813-1884), strong supporter of the steam maritime industry with political carrier himself. Epameinodas studied law and finance in Athens and Paris, served as a diplomat and wrote to major greek newspapers, while he was also involved in maritime and banking enterprises and participated to professional bodies and state organisations. He started his political stage with the Ch. Trikoupis party in 1890, he married the daughter of an ex greek prime minister and he was repeatedly elected as a deputy within the period 1892-1922 with the parties of G. Theotokis and Demetrios Gounaris. He published several essays on maritime issues supporting the idea that maritime industry and agriculture were the two pillars, on which Greece could base the fulfillment of the nation's great destiny, and describing the maritime industry as a critical sector for countries, for both financial and national reasons. He denounced politicians and the state for not taking any necessary measure to further support the sector which, based only on the entrepreneur's initiative and their untiring effort, served as a national representative in the world. Taking into account other countries examples and what greek ship-owners suggested, he proposed several meters, from the integration of the maritime legislation of all maritime countries to the naval education upgrade, but more strongly the suppression of taxes and multiple legal bureaucracy imposed, directly or indirectly, by the greek state to ship-owners, as far as the acquisition of vessel was concerned.
When appointed as a Minister of Naval Affairs in 1908-1909, he urged to prepare and pass a law referring to a wide spectrum of maritime industry matters integrating the greek relevant legislation to the european countries one. Among other innovations, there was the naval mortgage established, also permitted abroad, and there was great improvement to the co-ownership institutional and legal frame. The new legislation is supposed to highly favour the greek maritime industry further growth by encouraging foreign capitals to be invested in the sector.
