ATHENS – Former European Central Bank Vice-President Lucas Papademos has been sworn in as the country’s interim Prime Minister, charged with keeping international aid coming and holding together a coalition government that includes some bitter rivals, and far Right-Wing members for the first time since the fall of the military junta in 1974.
Papademos, 64, an MIT-educated economist who worked for the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston and was a National Bank of Greece Governor will have to push through a Parliament now under the complete control of the former ruling PASOK Socialists and the major opposition Conservative New Democracy party, along with two ministers from the far Rightist LAOS party, the terms of a second bailout of $157 billion from international lenders that comes with more of the pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and layoffs that helped bring down former leader George Papandreou. Greece is surviving on a series of $152 billion in rescue loans from a first bailout but the accompanying austerity measures have created a deep recession of 18.4 percent unemployment, and the shuttering of more than 100,000 businesses and failed to reduce Greece’s staggering $460 billion debt and 8.9 percent deficit, although the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-ECB has gotten the agreement of investors to write down 50 percent of most of Greece’s obligations. He also must get the release of a delayed $11 billion loan installment needed to keep paying workers and pensioners.
Papademos, who does not belong to a political party, could soon face the same kind of protests, riots and strikes that bedeviled Papandreou, although some analysts think Greeks may gave him a break to see how he handles the crisis that critics said is insurmountable and will still lead to bankruptcy or a default. But he could have another obstacle: Greece’s fractured politics, in trying to keep Socialists and Conservatives from each other’s throats and to work together and find a consensus on issues that created an economic war in the country.
The new government, agreed upon by Papandreou and New Democracy party leader Antonis Samaras, will serve until elections, tentatively set for February, giving Papademos little time to work on the problems. He will face a confidence vote in Parliament but that is overwhelmingly controlled now by the coalition as the Communists, Leftist SYRIZA party and independents have only 46 seats in the 300-member body. A bigger challenge is implementing more austerity and trying to begin the privatization of state-run entities and sale or lease of state-owned properties to raise as much as $70 billion to put a dent in debt created by generations of packing state payrolls with political hires, corruption, tax evasion and an uncompetitive economy.
“I think he will get that kind of brief honeymoon,” Thanos Dokos, head of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy said. ”People were desperate enough and now (may) give a new face, a new person, whos not a professional politician some leeway to try to do his job in the proper way. And, of course, at some point they will be expecting some results, which I’m afraid will not be forthcoming in the short term.”
The cabinet keeps in place Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who imposed waves of tax hikes on Greeks, including on the poor, and an emergency tax hike put into electric bills under the threat of having power turned off, wages garnished and property seized unless it’s paid. Venizelos remains a Deputy Prime Minister along with PASOK’s Theodoros Pangalos, who has little to do since Venizelos emerged as the face of the austerity program. Foreign Minister Stavros Lambrinidis, a former Washington lawyer who was also a skilled diplomat, has been replaced by Stavros Dimas of New Democracy, a former European Fisheries Commissioner, ousting one of PASOK’s most capable members from a key post. ND also got the valued spot of Defense Minister, which went to former Athens Mayor Dimitris Avramopoulos. LAOS’ Makis Voridis, a flamboyant speaker, got Infrastructure.
Not represented were the Communists and Leftist SYRIZA parties, who refused to participate. Communist leader Aleka Papariga urged Greeks to mobilize against the coalition, although she offered no alternative ideas. She said that “specific immediate issues exist, such as the abolition of taxes, immediate problems that are related to taxes, the solidarity tax, with the increased VAT, with the school committees of the schools that have no money, with the student dormitories that are closing soon, there is no money in the universities, nowhere, to fund them,” the party’s standard dogma.
THE NEW CABINET
Prime Minister
Lucas Papademos
Deputy Prime Ministers
Theodoros Pangalos
Evangelos Venizelos
Finance
Minister: Evangelos Venizelos
Alternate: Filippos Sachinidis
Alternate: Pantelis Economou
Deputy: Yiannis Mourmouras
Citizens’ Protection
Minister: Christos Papoutsis
Deputy: Manolis Othonas
Culture and Tourism
Minister: Pavlos Geroulanos
Deputy: Giorgos Nikitiadis
Deputy: Petros Alivizatos
Decentralisation & E-Governance
Minister: Dimitris Reppas
Deputy: Dinos Rovlias
Deputy: Pantelis Tzortzakis
National Defense
Minister: Dimitris Avramopoulos
Alternate: Yiannis Ragousis
Alternate: Georgios Georgiou
Deputy: Kostas Spiliopoulos
Development, Competitiveness & Shipping
Minister: Michalis Chrysochoidis
Alternate: Sokratis Xynidis
Deputy: Adonis Georgiadis
Deputy: Thanos Moraitis
Education, Lifelong Learning and Religious Affairs
Minister: Anna Diamantopoulou
Alternate: Constantinos Arvanitopoulos
Deputy: Evi Christofilopoulou
Environment, Energy & Climate Change
Minister: Giorgos Papaconstantinou
Alternate: Nikos Sifounakis
Deputy: Yiannis Maniatis
Foreign
Minister: Stavros Dimas
Alternate: Mariliza Xenoyiannakopoulou
Deputy: Dimitris Dollis
Interior
Minister: Tasos Giannitsis
Alternate: Fofi Gennimata
Deputy: Paris Koukoulopoulos
Health and Social Solidarity
Minister: Andreas Loverdos
Deputy: Dimitris Vartzopoulos
Deputy: Markos Bolaris
Deputy: Michalis Timosidis
Infrastructure, Transport and Networks
Minister: Makis Voridis
Deputy: Yiannis Magriotis
Justice, Transparency and Human Rights
Minister: Miltiadis Papaioannou
Deputy: Giorgos Petalotis
Labor and Social Insurance
Minister: Giorgos Koutroumanis
Deputy: Yiannis Koutsoukos
Agricultural Development and Food
Minister: Costas Skandalidis
Deputy: Yiannis Drivelegas
Deputy: Asterios Rodoulis
Minister of the state
Giorgos Stavropoulos
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