From early 2013 through May 2016, Konstantinos Koutras served as the spokesperson of the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs, heading the Ministry’s Information and Public Diplomacy Department. These duties were initially entrusted to him by the then Foreign Minister and current EU Home Affairs Commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos.
Subsequently, under the then Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos, he took on the additional duties of spokesperson and communication strategy coordinator for the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the EU, in the first half of 2014, finishing his term as Foreign Ministry spokesperson under the current Foreign Minister, Nikos Kotzias, who entrusted him with the post of Consul General of Greece in New York. He was also spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the election run-up of August and September 2015, under the caretaker Foreign Minister, Ambassador Petros Molyviatis.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Koutras served a four-year tour (2003-2007) at the Greek Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, headed the Justice and Home Affairs Department of the Greece’s Permanent Representation to the European Union from September 2007 to the summer of 2011, and, from June through December 2012, was the Diplomatic Counsellor to the Minister at the newly established Ministry for Shipping, Maritime Affairs and the Aegean.
He is a graduate of the School of Humanities of the University of Bonn (Germany) and holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Informatics from the University of Athens and a PhD from the University of Bonn.
Mr. Koutras and his wife Popita have a son, Dionysios.
As of May 2016, he is the Consul General of Greece in New York City.