He graduated with a degree in economics from the French School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des hautes études en sciences sociales), and later received a PhD in economics from Pantheon-Sorbonne University, also in France.
He has also been president of the French think tank IPEMED (Institut de prospective économique du monde méditerranéen).
After Papandreou became Greece's Prime Minister in 1981, Roumeliotis served, successively, as: From 1989 until 1994 he was Member of the European Parliament for PASOK.
[citation needed] Throughout the 1990s and 2000s he held various positions, such as Special Representative of the Council of the European Union for the stability process in the Balkans (1997-2000) and President of the Working Group for democratization, human rights and minority rights of the South Eastern Europe Stability Pact (2000-2001).
The Chairman of the Bank, Michalis Sallas, was also an economic advisor for Andreas Papandreou, and he and Roumeliotis have known each other for many years.