House president Annita Demetriou described Eleftherios Venizelos as a leader who “transcended the time limits of his era”, in an address to an Athens conference on Tuesday.

The conference, organised by the Venizelos historical foundation, examined him as a model of political leadership.

On Cyprus, Demetriou said, “the island’s union with Greece occupied Venizelos at several stages of his career” yet this union “did not become a reality during his lifetime”.

Venizelos was a Greek statesman and leader of the Greek national liberation movement. He served as prime minister of Greece for over 12 years, spanning eight terms from 1910 to 1933.