/ world today news/ The government of new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras began to lift the curtain with the announcement on Tuesday of the name of Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis – a fierce critic of austerity policies – who will need all the strength of his character to went to renegotiate the debt in Brussels.
“The renegotiation has almost started, we just have to roll up our sleeves and get to work,” Varoufakis, who met with Eurogroup President Jeroen Diesselblam on Monday evening, told reporters. He is due to move to Athens on Friday to meet the prime minister.
But after the usual congratulations, there will be no shortage of contentious topics: the EU has set a deadline of the end of February for certain necessary reforms to unblock around 7 billion euros in aid, and Tsipras has already made it clear that this kind of ultimatum is not to his taste .
Already on Tuesday evening, a senior official at the German central bank, Joachim Nagel, warned the new Greek government not to stop the European aid program. It would have “fatal consequences” for the Greek banking system, he warned in the German business daily Handelsblatt, published on Wednesday.
The Greek government can start to show its strategy already during the first meeting of the cabinet, which will be held on Wednesday morning.
Known for his originality among the Greek political class, Varoufakis is a professor of economics. He is 53 years old and a fierce advocate of reducing the public debt and “the end of austerity”.
The team responsible for renegotiating the debt will be overseen by Deputy Prime Minister Ioannis Dragazakis, a moderate economist and SYRIZA cadre, according to sources close to the minister.
Even from the heavy artillery – in the new government is the economist Georgios Statakis. At 61, he is a lecturer at the University of Crete and will be in charge of the super-ministry of economy, infrastructure, merchant marine and tourism.
For the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tsipras nominated Nikos Kotsias, professor of political science and former diplomatic adviser. He will be assisted by Deputy Minister of Economic Relations Euclides Tsakalotos, a professor of finance at the University of Athens, who is also likely to be part of the debt negotiation team.
Reducing the burden of Greek debt, which is 175% of GDP, or about 316 billion euros, is at the heart of the economic and political program of the SYRIZA party.
On Tuesday, after a long silence, German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to congratulate Alexis Tsipras on his victory and wished him “strength and success”.
Most ministers participated in the civil oath before the President of the Republic, Karolos Papoulias. This broke the tradition in Greece – this ceremony is usually religious in nature. However, some respected him. The leader of the right-wing party “Independent Greeks” was baptized in front of the patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Greece. In exchange for his support for Tsipras, Panos Kammenos received the Ministry of Defense.
The Athens stock exchange index fell sharply after the government’s announcement, falling as much as 6.4% before paring losses to end the session down 3.69%. Greek debt for ten years rose to 9.6%. /AFP
Athens / Greece
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