New government in Greece

The Greek Government announced a broad reshuffle on Monday night, just a few days after the junior coalition partner Democratic Left pulled out . PASOK’s leader Evangelos Venizelos is assuming the dual role of deputy prime minister and foreign minister, conservative New Democracy’s MP Kyriakos Mitsotakis is taking on the difficult task of administrative reform, while Yannis Stournaras kept his post as finance minister.

The new cabinet is to be sworn in at 12.30 p.m. local time today in a ceremony to be presided over by the President of the Hellenic Republic Karolos Papoulias.

Several key New Democracy cabinet members, including Development Minister Costis Hatzidakis, Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias, Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis, Tourism Minister Olga Kefaloyianni and Education Minister Constantinos Arvanitopoulos have retained their portfolios.

Pantelis Kapsis a former editor of the Greek daily “TA NEA”, and a former government spokesman under the technocratic government of Lucas Papademos, was appointed assistant minister responsible for the state broadcaster ERT.

As expected, PASOK’s involvement in the new government was doubled with Yiannis Maniatis becoming the Environment Ministry and Michalis Chrysochoidis taking on a new autonomous Transport Ministry.

Other appointments included the posting in the Health Ministry of conservative MP Adonis Georgiadis with his ND peer Yiannis Michelakis assuming the top spot at the Interior Ministry.

Outgoing Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos was moved to the Defense Ministry, with the incumbent there, Panos Panagiotopoulos, taking the Culture and Sports portfolio.