George Papapavlou

George Papapavlou was born in Athens, in 1951. He received a Diploma in Public Law and Political Science from the University of Athens and he pursued his postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (Master of Science in Politics – Comparative Government).

In 1974, he started his professional career working as Press Attaché initially and then Press Secretary (1974-1982) in the Greek Embassy in London and in the Ministry for Press and Information in Athens (1982-1985).

During the period 1985-2008, he served the European Commission from various information-related positions including:

• Head of the Unit  “Implementation of the regulatory framework II”, May 2004-December 2008; previously
• Head of the Unit  “Internet related services” (1999-2004) and
• Head of the Unit  “Information market policy” (1998-99);

Mr. Papapavlou was responsible for preparing or managing Commission policies and legislative proposals covering the whole spectrum of the information society: information content, telecommunications infrastructures and the Internet.

From May 2004 until December 2008, his responsibilities concerned monitoring and facilitating the implementation by EU Member States of the EU regulatory framework on Electronic Communications (5 Directives). He has also represented the Commission in a large number of international meetings and conferences.

As part of the above responsibilities he has worked closely with the independent regulatory authorities, responsible ministries and telecommunications providers in 16 Member States, including Greece. The result of this cooperation has been the stable and constant improvement of the competition conditions in the electronic communications services in the European Union, the high rate in the annual development of the said sector, the stable drop in prices and the improvement of the services provided to consumers and enterprises. Related detailed data is published every year in the European Commission Implementation Report (the 14th was published on March 25th , 2009).  

While working for the European Commission he has drafted:

• The Directive 95/46/EC on personal data protection;
• The 1997 Green Paper on Access to Public Sector Information, which led to a relevant Directive;
• The 1996 Communication on illegal and harmful content on the Internet  which was followed by
• The 1999 Safer Internet Action Plan (eventually named e-Safe AP) ;
• The 2001  Communication on  “Creating a Safer Information Society by Improving the Security of Information Infrastructures and Combating Computer-Related Crime”;  
• The 2002 “Proposal for a Framework Decision on  Attacks Against Information Systems”;
• The Regulation 773/2002, establishing the dot eu Top Level Domain.

He has also been involved in the drafting of the EC Directives on Electronic Commerce and Copyright.

He has represented the Commission in several meetings of ICANN (Stockholm, Accra, Bucharest, Shanghai, Montreal, Amsterdam, Rome). He took part in the Commission delegation at the WIPO 1996 conference in Geneva which produced the Copyright Convention.  He has participated in bilateral EU-US discussions on cybercrime, Internet governance and telecommunications policy.

He is married and has one daughter.  

He speaks English, French, German and Italian.

Since September 2nd , 2009 he has been a Member of the Plenary of the Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission.