Greek Revival

PRIME MINISTER KYRIAKOS MITSOTAKIS IS DETERMINED TO MAKE GREECE THE COMEBACK STORY OF THE DECADE 

- ADAM RASMI

KYRIAKOS MITSOTAKIS HAS A CONFESSION TO MAKE. “Sometimes I watch the footage from my speeches and I always look much taller than everyone else around,” the 6-ft. 1-in. Greek Prime Minister says with a wry smile, buckled up in the back seat of his car in a pressed blue shirt and black hoodie. “Just so you know, there’s a small platform that I climb up that you can’t see in the videos.”

Mitsotakis is addressing his followers on TikTok, where his account so successfully showcases his softer side that it has brought his team a national award. “We are very biased, but I honestly believe it’s the best TikTok of any politician in the world,” says Alex Patelis, his chief economic adviser.

“I loved it,” echoes Mitsotakis, 56, after the two of us sit down in March in his wood-paneled office at the pale pink and white Maximos Mansion in Athens, which has served as the neoclassical workplace of every Greek leader since 1982. He’d spent the past 20 years in politics trying to close the gap between what people thought of him—as someone who “wears a tie” and is “proper”—and his more lighthearted side. “TikTok bridged that, completely.”

That’s not the only way Mitsotakis is surprising people. He legalized same-sex marriage in February—making Greece the first Orthodox Christian country, and practically the only country in the eastern half of Europe, to do so. He took that step despite the ire of the powerful Greek Orthodox Church and lack of support from a third of his own center-right New Democracy party, forcing him to reach across the aisle. “As a matter of principle, the time had come to do the right thing,” Mitsotakis says, fidgeting with his komboloi, or worry beads, as an oil painting of the Virgin Mary looms above.