ATHENS, (Reuters) – Technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos took office on Friday to save Greece from bankruptcy, heading a coalition cabinet filled with many of the same politicians who led the nation into crisis and pushed the euro zone to the brink of collapse.
At a colourful swearing-in ceremony, black-robed Orthodox priests, led by the Archbishop of Athens, blessed Papademos and a cabinet dominated by the two main parties which had bickered for four days before agreeing on the crisis coalition. Apart from Papademos, a former European Central Bank vice president with no political experience, the cabinet’s main new face is from the LAOS party — the first time the far right has joined a Greek government since a military junta fell in 1974.
As politicians in Italy pushed through austerity measures and contemplated an emergency government to stave off the crisis creeping deeper into the euro zone, Papademos said his priority would be to meet the terms of the country’s EU, IMF bailout and pull Greece out of recession. “The final result will depend much on whether we succeed in stabilising the real economy, reining in unemployment and setting the ground to revive the economy and gradually boost employment in a relatively short time,” he told his governing team in its first meeting.
“That’s why I would like to ask everyone to do his best in the next coming days, weeks and months.”
The line-up includes Socialist party power broker Evangelos Venizelos, who keeps the post of finance minister that he held in Papandreou’s government.
Analysts said Papademos — a quiet academic economist — had to assert his authority over a cabinet packed with the hardened conservative and Socialist party politicians who took turns in power for decades as Greece built up a huge debt it could not manage, forcing an international bailout.
“Greece has a government that is the result of political compromise among three parties. It is obvious that there was a dealing of the cards,” said Costas Panagopoulos, head of ALCO pollsters. “It all now depends on how the prime minister handles them.”
CLEAR MANDATE,
TOUGH TASK
The interim government of national unity, which has a bumper 48 ministers and their deputies, plans to announce its platform on Monday evening, then conduct a debate and win a confidence vote in parliament by early next week.
It has a clear mandate that may not be so simple to implement before it calls an early general election, tentatively agreed for Feb. 19.
It has to push through parliament Greece’s second bailout deal in as many years — a plan that includes fighting tax evasion, selling off state companies and cutting the public sector — to get hold of 130 billion euros in long term funds.
But Athens also needs money fast from its IMF and EU lenders to meet big debt repayments due in December or face default, bankruptcy and the danger of leaving the euro zone.
