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After the unexpected news that the Interior Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis married a fourth time it was impossible not to find out which actually is the lady of his heart and what she was doing before becoming Minister’s wife. The study of the biography of Maria Matsouka led us to various interesting, even mysterious places, that we did not even suppose that existed. Such as the small picturesque village Lepenu in western Greece from where the ambitious young woman went to conquer the big political left in Athens.
  
After graduating Italian Studies, the young woman started working in the telecommunication company COSMOTE in 1998, where she quickly climbed the corporate ladder. At the same time Maria Matsouka found the strength and the time to involve in the struggle for fair conditions of employment of youth as a board member of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) and the Youth Organizing Committee. And as we know, efforts are almost always valued (especially if you are young, beautiful and ambitious) and the luck knocked on her door. After George Papandreou took the scepter of PASOK government from his legendary predecessor Costas Simitis, he began to shape the new face of the party. The beautiful lady Matsouka was chosen for the number one Member of the European Parliament.

According to the Greek Internet blog http://toblogtonkirion.gr Maria moved in a comfortable apartment in the capital of Europe, Brussels, from where she would carry out her duties of European representative of the Greek country. Although she worked very hard and for many hours, the young woman didn’t leave her personal life aside, but on the contrary - she started to socialize with her colleagues from the European Parliament and to go to the best restaurants in Brussels.

Here comes the first scandal, which implicated the name of the present Mrs. Chrisochoidis. When in the winter of 2005 she was on an official visit in Strasbourg she received a call from her colleagues from the headquarters. A photo that has caught the young MP in an intimate moment was sent by fax. The Greek mass media usually circulates such incidents under the code name “pink scandal”. This deeply saddened Maria Matsouka and she gave the circulation of personal images to internal enemies. “Pathetic political provocation aimed at the personal and the political taint of the Maria Matsouka dignity, in particular of PASOK” stated a group of Greek MEPs who supported their colleague in this difficult moment.

The fuss of the scandal faded and life returned to its ordinary course. In Brussels, Matsouka met Demiris Vangelis – a Greek journalist, who worked as European correspondent for the  Greek national media ERT and the news agency APE. A passionate love flared up between them and for reasons unknown to us it subsided weeks before the wedding day. The MEP decided to return to Greece, where another unpleasant surprise expected her. The spring of 2009 found her unprepared to the news that she would not be a candidate for the assembly of B-Athens area; rather she would come as a representative of her native village Lepenu. Mary did not like the idea and remained outside the lists of the Socialist Party for the coming elections. There is a lot of speculation on the issue. The blog toblogtonkirion.gr suggested that in this way Papandreou punished Matsuka for the “pink scandal”. Other sources suggested that at that time Michalis Chrisochoidis and Maria Matsouka probably were already a couple and it was not possible they both to be nominated deputies of the same area.

Whatever the truth, today Maria Matsouka is Mrs.Chrisochoidis number 4 and expects her first child from her first marriage.