Our Woman in Washington
4 June 2002
Oakland, California
The car of the Honorary Consul of Cyprus pulled up outside San Francisco City Hall. The elegant woman sitting next to him got out of the car and as I offered my hand to her, she pulled me into a warm embrace. I was meeting the Ambassador of Cyprus to the US, Her Excellency Dr Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis for the first time.
I had learnt about her forthcoming speech at the World Affairs Council and realising that our Ambassador to the US was a woman and that we had some things in common - being Cypriot women living and working abroad - I was intrigued. My request for an interview was answered with enthusiasm and through the Honorary Consul of Cyprus in San Francisco, Mr Nick Theophanous, I was given more access to her than I had hoped for.
The first minutes of our meeting revealed a warm, down-to-earth person. In the three days I spent accompanying her to various official visits, attending her speech, and interviewing her myself, I built a profile of a very dynamic, intelligent woman with excellent communication skills and a great sense of humour, a warm person who builds instant rapport with practically everyone she meets, a dedicated worker and a most competent diplomat.
Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis was born in Limassol in 1949 and graduated from Lanition Gymnasium. While still at school, at the age of 16, she met George Marcoullis whom she married at the age of 20. Dr George Marcoullis is now Associate Professor of Medicine at the New York Medical College. Their son, Panos, born in 1977, graduated from the University of Michigan last year.
Ambassador Marcoullis is a graduate of Law and Political Science/Public Law from the University of Athens, and holds a PhD in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Helsinki, Finland.
How did she find herself in the diplomatic world, I wondered. "I was searching for 10-12 years," she explained. "That's why I got three degrees, because I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I started with Law thinking that being a lawyer would fulfil me but it didn't. I moved to political science and then to sociology. The period when I really found what I wanted to do - diplomacy - was when we moved with my husband to New York and I became acquainted with Cyprus' permanent mission there. It was a very active period for Cyprus. I thought to myself that I could put together all this knowledge that I got at university in a practical way. So in 1980 I joi ned Cyprus' Permanent Mission to the UN and the Foreign Ministry, and started gradually to move up the ladder. It's been very fulfilling! I never regretted it and I would do the same thing all over again."
Not surprisingly, her biggest challenge has been balancing her responsibilities. Her responsibility to her work "which is huge because as a diplomat you represent your country and your people and it's a very, very heavy responsibility", with those towards her marriage and her family. She credits her marriage with enabling her to be successful. "I consider myself lucky because I got married when I was 20 and I really grew up with my husband. We have been very supportive of each other; it was give-and-take all the time. So I gave a lot of my life and my support to him, whenever he needed it, and he's given me back. Without his support I couldn't make it."
She is also glad to have spent many years in the Nordic countries. In addition to her studies in Finland, she was Ambassador to Sweden (with concurrent accreditation to Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) for two years before coming to the US in September 1998. She greatly admires the position of women in those countries and cites many examples of women's successful participation in the highest levels of government. But she recognises that Cyprus itself has a respectable record as far as the diplomatic body is concerned. She is one of six Cypriot women ambassadors, which include such key posts as London, Brussels, and, of course, Washington, DC.
Her own role model was Mrs Stella Souliotis. In the early 1960s Mrs Souliotis was a cabinet minister and a very prominent figure in Cyprus' politics. Young Erato admired her from afar and attributes to this admiration the decision to study law. When later on, Kozakou-Marcoullis actually got to know Mrs Souliotis closely, when the latter was Attorney-General, she found her expectations exceeded. "She has a wonderful character. A very modest person, very shy, but she is very dynamic, very decisive - a very strong personality. But she doesn't like publicity. She does everything effectively but in the background."
Ambassador Marcoullis admits she herself is not quite like that. "I am a communicator! It's very important, whatever you do in life, to connect and to be able to put yourself in the other person's position. There are a lot of people who talk to each other but they don't really communicate. The ability to really listen and to really connect with people, meaning, to put yourself in their position - that's what I like to do."
And she does it well. In the Q&A section of her speech at the World Affairs Council as well as when she received calls from the audience during her radio interview (see related story), she adroitly deflected questions that were aimed at putting her - and the Cyprus position - on the spot, making sure she did not diminish the questioner but rather empathised without compromising her own position and without missing an opportunity to promote her forward-looking perspective.
The post of ambassador to the US is the most difficult position she has had to date because of the many different players involved in US politics. In addition to the traditional players that one typically finds in Europe, ie the government, the parliament and the media, in the US one has to take into account other significant parties like the universities and, most importantly, the think-tanks, like RAND Corporation, the Council of Foreign Relations and the Cato Institute. In Washington alone there are over 50, she says, "with very important scholars who prepare reports that go to different departments in the administration." As a result she has made keeping in touch with these organisations, through regular emails and round-table discussions, a large part of her job.
On the other hand she does not find that being a woman makes her job harder. Quite to the contrary, it helps her, as "it promotes a very modern, very advanced image of Cyprus". She is currently one of 16 women ambassadors in Washington, "a very active and dynamic group." They hold regular meetings with Congresswomen and high-ranking women in the administration as well as with other women's groups such as the "Women's Foreign Policy Group" of which she is a member and "Women in International Security".
Technology is a tool Ambassador Marcoullis uses very effectively in her job. She credits her son with introducing her to it - by dragging her out to buy a computer - but she has taken to it easily. She has ensured that every officer has a computer on his/her desktop with access to the internet and has had a multi-media room set up at the embassy. She updates by herself the Cyprus Embassy website, originally created by her son (www.cyprusembassy.net), by posting her speeches. She also sends daily emails to various groups of people with updates on Cyprus. During her visit to the Bay Area, she eagerly solicited email addresses to add to her list for her daily dispatches. True to her word, the emails started arriving that very night, with news from both Cypriot and Turkish sources.
Her interests outside work are many. She likes art and poetry and enjoys swimming and SCUBA diving with her family. She is also a lover and supporter of culture, Greek and Cypriot culture in particular. She has two exact copies of traditional Cypriot costumes, one from Karpassia and the other from Paphos, which she proudly wore when presenting her credentials to the Queen of Denmark as well as to a White House function under President Clinton.
But her dedication to her work leaves little time for personal activities. She is a tireless evangelist for Cyprus' reunification and EU accession. Her optimism is infectious, her insistence to leave the past behind and look to the future, inspiring, but not of the utopian kind. She is a firm believer in Europe and its institutions which she is convinced hold the answer to bridging the differences between Cyprus' two communities.
And although she is right about not being reserved like Mrs Souliotis, she can still be a wonderful role model for young girls in Cyprus.
