Education
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
politician Member of the Hellenic Parliament
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
In 1961, he got involved with right-wing National Radical Union"s youth organisation EREN. Studying law at Athens University, he was elected chairman of the Student Union of Nikaia and Korydallos. Under prime minister Kostas Karamanlis, Nerantzis held various vice-ministerial posts. Deputy of Development minister Dimitris Sioufas, he was involved in the Turkey–Greece gas pipeline completed in 2007.
In the 2007-2009 period, he was the 3rd Deputy Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament representing his party"s parliamentary group.
In 2012 he was promoted to the post of the transnational organization"s Secretary-General. Following a 2010 visit to the Armenian Orthodox, separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region, the government of Azerbaijan declared him a persona non grata.
Compulsory voting
Nikoloudis List
When in his last parliamentary term (2012-2014), Nerantzis was elected president of the parliament"s Special Permanent Committee on Institutions and Transparency, he was involved in several controversies. After he had been criticized for procedural irregularities in late 2013, in early 2014 he was accused by the opposition for withholding the "Nikoloudis Report" from the parliament.
The report named after Cassation Court investigator Panagiotis Nikoloudis listed 413 persons indicted for tax evasion and money laundering, including a number of local and regional government officials.
Homophobia controversy
In a parliamentary debate in September 2014, Nerantzis railed against the adoption of an anti-discrimination bill aimed at protective rights for same-sex couples. "Since the third century marriage has been defined only between man and woman. As such, there is no place for civil unions in Greece." he said, comparing homosexuality with paedophilia and brothels "allowing bestiality".
A co-founder of the New Democracy party, he was a long-standing member of the Hellenic Parliament, governor of Samos and Lesbos prefectures, and held various posts as deputy minister in the first Karamanlis government (2004-2007). Following the 1974 collapse of the Greek military junta Nerantzis became a founding member of New Democracy and with the first election was rightaway elected a member of the Hellenic Parliament representing the suburban Piraeus B constituency. From 1978 until 1981, he would serve as the parliament"s Secretary-General, and in 1994, he was elected a member of New Democracy"s Central and Executive Committees.
In the debate on abolishing administrative sanctions to enforce compulsory voting, he was cited to be the only member objecting to the abolition on the grounds that this would render compulsory voting, which he strongly defended, a pure "academicism, a light that does not shine, a fire that gives no heat.".
He didn"t return to parliament before November 1989, but would remain a Member of the Hellenic Parliament for seven consecutive terms, from 1993 until 2014. In the 2000–2004 term, Nerantzis was a member of the Committee for the Revision of the Constitution. While Nerantzis first argued that the list didn"t specify names and that no members of the Hellenic Parliament were affected, Syriza Member of Parliament Zoi Konstantopoulou"s public attacks finally forced him to reveal the list.