Dalakouras was born in 1938 in
Athens,
Kingdom of Greece. He graduated from the former
Supreme School of Economics and Business (ASOEE), which is now known as the
Athens University of Economics and Business. He entered the
Greek shipping industry. Dalakouras gradually established his own shipping fleet and founded
Dalex Shipping Co S.A., which became a major Greek
shipping line. He is credited with establishing new
Greek-Iranian and
Greek-Turkish economic relations through the shipping industry. Dalakouras also worked in real estate and the
Greek tourism industry. He helped to restore the historic centre at
Chora and the
Monastery of Saint John the Theologian - both located on the Aegean island of
Patmos. These Patmos locations were later declared to the
UNESCO World Sites. Dalakouras was elected to the
Hellenic Parliament in
1974 as a member of the
New Democracy party. He won
re-election in 1977 and served as an MP until January 1981. In January 1981, he became one of the first Greek
Member of the European Parliament following Greece's
ascension into the
European Union. He served as a Greek MEP from January 1981 until October of the same year. Dalakouras was a member of the
European Parliament Committee on Transport and Tourism from February 1981 to October 1981 during his tenure in
Brussels. Dalakouras was appointed the
Civil Administrator of Mount Athos, the civil
head of government for the
monastic community of Mount Athos, on 17 September 2004. He served until 2010, when he was succeeded by
Aristos Kasmiroglou, who had also preceded him. Dalakouras became head of the "Bicephalus 1924" company in 2013, which was responsible for the renovation of
AEK Athens'
Olympic Stadium in Athens. Giorgios Dalakouras died on 8 July 2021, at the age of 83. He was survived by his wife, Eleni Dalakura, and their four children: Katerina, Dimitris, Vassilis and Michalis. Several of children also work in the shipping industry or became academics in London. ==References==