Anna Diamantopoulou Wants To Lead The OECD’s Post-Covid Recovery

Anna Diamantopoulou has had a long career in both Greek and European politics - having worked on education, industrial policy, and social justice. As such, she wants to work on this issue to build a more inclusive world as the next Secretary-General of the OECD. To do so, she wants to focus on digital transformation, green and blue growth, and updating skills.

“I think that the Secretary-General can play a role in the G20 meetings and cooperating with the World Trade Organizations in order to soften this big conflict, working with China on concrete areas, because we need to persuade to work with the Chinese government in order to adhere concrete agreements,” Diamantopoulou said, “So these I think these would be very helpful for a better world economic climate, and experience can play a role in this area.”

As Greece's minister of Education and also competitiveness, she has used the OECD as a resource, and as such says she uniquely understands how the international organization can support member states in the post-Covid world.

“ I know how important that this organization can be when a member state or another nonmember state can take into account and implement the reforms and recommendations proposed,” Diamantopoulou said.

A civil engineer by training, Diamantopoulou started her political career when she was only 25 when she was appointed Governor of the Region of Kastoria in northern Greece, the youngest person in Greece's history to occupy this position. In 1999, she became the European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, where she oversaw the EU’s adoption of its “Social Policy Agenda” and the European Health Insurance Card.  

In 2009, she became Greece’s minister of Education and implemented instrumental reforms under George Papandreou’s government, and eventually took over the Development, Competitiveness and Shipping ministry in 2012. 

She is one of three women running for the role, along with President Kersti Kaljulaid of Estonia and Cecilia Malmstrom of Sweden. One of them could become the first one to ever lead the OECD since its creation, in 1961. There are 10 people running overall.

“If a woman holds the post of the Secretary-General of a certain influential organization which has a presence in all countries of the world, from Africa to Latin America and from Asia to Europe. I think it is so important for young women and young girls to believe in their own dreams.”

The OECD is an international economic organization composed of 37 countries founded in 1961 to promote democracy and the market economy. Member countries are mainly located in Europe and North America, but Australia, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, Israel, Japan, and South Korea are also members.

Diamantopoulou talked to me on Friday, November 13. This is part of a series of interviews with female contenders for the Secretary-General role at the OECD.  You can now read the interview with Kersti Kaljulaid of Estonia and Cecilia Malmstrom of Sweden. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Stephanie Fillion: Why did you want to run for the position?

Anna Diamantopoulou: First of all that you know that it is the member states to nominate a candidate. In my case, the Greek Prime Minister made this proposal to me, although I have never been a member of his party, and he decided to propose a non-partisan candidacy.

For me, it was a challenge, because, during my life, I both had a political career, but at the same time, I was president of a Think Tank, and a career in the academic world as well. So since the OECD  is an organization that is technocratic but political at the same time, it was a big challenge for me. To be frank with you, one of the reasons is that I had the opportunity to cooperate closely with the OECD, in very difficult moments. 

As the Minister of Education, I have worked very closely, not only with the Secretary-General but with the services. I have been in Paris, I have worked with the people there because I asked for an evaluation of all Greek educational systems and primary, secondary, and universities and lifelong learning. Then, I proceeded with very big, fundamental reforms that did that school, university, etc. and the OECD played a very important role in that, supporting me, giving me data, etc. 

The second important issue was that as a minister of competitiveness, we had signed a report referring to the economic reforms in the country will lead to a duplicate toolkit for competitiveness. It was a report with more than 352 recommendations in all sectors from construction to tourism. As the ethics Commissioner, I had close cooperation with the OECD, particularly on gender equality and mainstream policies. I know how important that this organization can be when a member state or another non-member state can take into account and implement the reforms and recommendations proposed.

Fillion: Can you tell me a little more about how your experience in education and how it's shaped maybe your vision of the OECD?

Diamantopoulou: First of all the OECD is the organization dealing with educational issues. The PISA project [Programme for International Student Assessment] is an extremely crucial and important program and it offers a lot and contributes a lot in educational assistance across the world.

Now, and in the post-pandemic post, skills updating will be the number one issue. We know very well that because of the economic problems, because of the financial expansion, because of the increasing debt, we have to prepare the next day and we have priorities, it is the digital transformation, it is great growth, but updating skills is number one. Here, my point is the following: on the one side is the educational systems which need a very deep reform, and this reform has to do not only with the methods or the digital equipment but the curricula as well. We have to combine Aristotle and computers. What I mean by that is on the one side we have yet the digital skills on the other side, we have to focus on humanistic sciences and from the very first class to bring together these two different worlds because we're not machines, we're human beings. Beyond the second part after the to get beyond the educational systems themselves, it's the lifelong learning systems. 

According to the OECD, there is a huge percentage of workers who have to update their skills or to change their skills in the labor market. So, how will the educational systems in its member state support these people? All generations to be active in the new labor market, so I have worked on a lot of that as a Minister of Education, but as a president of Think Tank, on how we should change the lifelong learning systems.

There was interesting cooperation with the United Nations to see that lifelong learning can be a new human right. Older people must be obliged to participate in lifelong systems, and countries have to offer lifelong learning. Because otherwise, there will be a deep division between generations and big differences between countries, among countries.

Fillion: What do you think is the biggest challenge the OECD is facing right now? 

Diamantopoulou: I think we can see first politically, in the post-pandemic period, the major challenge is going to be inclusion. During the pandemic, the state kept stepping in and dealing with the health crisis, and with the economic ramifications. There were many and there is an increase in the depth everywhere in all member states. And we know that we have to deal with this increase in-depth, because this will be the major inequality between generations who are going to pay for this debt, young people are going to pay. So how do we prepare ourselves, what are the priorities?

I believe that politically, the priority is inclusion. What I mean by that there will be exclusion within the countries among the generations, exclusion among the genders. We have to convert all our policies and tools and mechanisms in order to fight the exclusion, how should we do that, I think that there are three areas of priorities: digital transformation, green and blue growth, and updating skills. I highlight the last one, as we have already discussed, because whatever we do at the level of reforms, or at the level of investment, we cannot have results without updating skills. So these are the three main priorities under the light of the political goal, which is inclusion.

Fillion: What is your vision of how taxation should evolve, with all the changes that are taking place in society?

Diamantopoulou: Because of this fiscal expansion and because of losing taxation income, the problem for government taxation plays a very important role, and the OECD has worked on this issue for more than 50 years. So, there are two different areas; there is the BEPS [Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project] program, which is a very interesting one, and works on tax accounting data tax avoidance generally, which is extremely important for developed and developing countries. The most modern issue is the issue of digital taxation, and the digital economy, digitalization, and globalization, and new models in enterprises, that have enabled big multinationals to make large profits all over the world, but they are not taxed where value is created and this is the major problem.

This happened because digitalization does not meet any more physical presence, and because the existing tax rules are the traditional ones, they do not meet the needs we have today.

So I think that three main areas, the first one is the digital agreement which is in the pipeline, I believe that it is a priority for the next Secretary-General to work in order to reach an agreement at the conceptual basis.

There are two other areas. The first one has to do with the allocation of taxing rights, and the second one has to do with minimum taxation. There is a huge number of countries dealing with this agreement. Some of them agree on the first part, some of them agree with the second part. So this is what the Secretary-General has to work to find a final agreement, and I think it is extremely important. Otherwise, there are countries that have already announced or implemented taxations and these will lead to economic war.

A second interesting issue that the OECD has again started to work on and presented in the report is the issue of taxation of digital platforms. Again, this is a big issue. And according to this report, countries should require digital platforms to present the income realized by provided by service providers or by accommodation or by people who offer accommodations and to inform the tax services. I think it is very important for a level-playing field between the traditional and digital businesses. The third interesting issue is the issue of ew virtual currencies. Again, there are new tax challenges, including the potential of tax evasion. So there are so many new things that OECD can really work in the present the ideas and supporting governments to with its date.

Fillion: If you got the position, you would be the first woman to be the Secretary-General of the OECD. Is it important for you?

Diamantopoulou: Yes, it is. When I became a governor in Northern Greece, I was 26 years old. The difficulties for a woman holding a top job were immense, and I have experienced them firsthand. At that time, being a woman in politics, a young woman in politics was a disadvantage. This is the case in many countries across the world. This is not the case, maybe in my country, your country or in Europe, but in the majority of countries in the world. When Kamala Harris holds the post of Vice President-elect in the United States, imagine how many girls say 'yes, there is a possibility for me.' I think it is not the same, but there are similarities. If a woman holds the post of the Secretary-General of a certain influential organization, which has a presence in all countries of the world, from Africa to Latin America and from Asia to to Europe. I think it is so important for young women and young girls to believe in their own dreams. So yes, I believe that this is very important.