Stefanos Manos, a Greek politician and former government minister, died on Aug. 15, 2026, at 86, Skai.gr reported. His public career included environmental and infrastructure work and advocacy of market liberalization.
He studied mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and earned an MBA at Harvard before joining the industrial company Allatini in 1966. He rose through management to become chairman before leaving in 1977 for electoral politics. He won a New Democracy seat in Greece’s Parliament that year and became deputy public-works minister. When the environment ministry was created in 1980, he took charge; he said he had proposed creating it.
In 1990, Manos returned as minister of environment, spatial planning and public works. He promoted the Athens Metro contract and planning for three major projects: the Attiki Odos motorway, Spata airport and the Rio-Antirrio bridge. He also backed private capital for major infrastructure. To address Athens’ smog, he promoted a program to retire old polluting cars and replace them with vehicles fitted with catalytic converters. He presented figures showing that 332,453 cars were withdrawn.
Manos became national economy and finance minister in 1992. He backed opening markets to competition, privatization, limits on state monopolies and private participation in major infrastructure.
New Democracy expelled Manos in 1998 after he supported an amendment concerning public utilities backed by a government led by the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, against the position of New Democracy leader Kostas Karamanlis. He founded the Liberals in 1999. The party won about 1.62% in the June European elections but gained no parliamentary representation. In the 2000 national elections, it cooperated with New Democracy, and Manos returned to Parliament.
In 2004, he was elected as an independent on the Panhellenic Socialist Movement’s nationwide party list. His parliamentary career ended in 2007. He co-founded the liberal party Drassi in 2009 and led it until 2012. His 2022 oral autobiography, Stefanos Manos – Tomi stin adraneia, covered his political career and reform agenda.
