The Hellenic Parliament (through the Office of Science) and the Foundation of the Hellenic Parliament for the Parliamentary System and Democracy organized a seminar entitled "The Constitution of 1864: 150 years after" which took place on 7 November at the Senate Hall, in the building of the Hellenic Parliament . The conference opened with the speech of the Secretary General of the Hellenic Parliament, Mr. Athanassios Papaioannou.
In the beginning of his speech, Mr. Papaioannou said:
"It is a great honor for me and it gives me great pleasure to welcome on behalf of the Speaker, Mr. Evangelos Meimarakis today's conference which takes place on the occasion of completion of 150 years of the entry into force of the Constitution of 1864, with which our country took the decisive step of passing from a constitutional monarchy to democratic monarchy.
It is known that this Constitution was a successful institutional data section in our country and therefore irrefutable witness is its longevity, given that its basic structure and philosophy were kept intact until the Constitution of 1975 -that is over a century- something which is of particular importance if you consider that during this period there were five other intervening constitutions, two world wars, two civil wars, three dictatorships and a considerable number of military movements.(…)”.