Photo: Ethnos
After fierce negotiations that continued until the last moment, the spokesman of the new Greek government Simos Kedikoglou has announced its composition.
As GRReporter reported yesterday, the new Minister of Finance is the former president of the National Bank of Greece Vasilis Rapanos. He and his deputy in charge of transparency George Mavraganis will not take oath today. The third person in the "blue" team is Christos Staikouras.
Minister of Interior will be Evripidis Stylianidis and his deputy will be Haralambos Athanasiou.
The Ministry of Administrative Reform and E-Governance will be headed by the constitutional law professor Antonis Manitakis with Manousos Voloudakis as his deputy.
New Democracy vice president Dimitris Avramopoulos will take the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His deputy, Dimitris Kourkoulas has a long career as a diplomat and was the head of the European Commission Delegation in Bulgaria.
Panos Panagiotopoulos will head the Ministry of Defence with deputies Panagiotis Karampelas and Dimitris Elefsiniotis.
Ministry of Development, Competitiveness, Infrastructure, Transport and Networks is one of the two new departments with expanded powers. Kostis Hatzidakis has been appointed its minister. Stavros Kaloyannis, Athanasios Skordas and Notis Mitarakis are the names of his deputies, who will allocate the branches.
Kostis Moussouroulis will head the newly established or restored after its closure in 2009 Ministry of Merchant Marine and Aegean and George Vernicos will be his deputy.
Evangelos Livieratos will take the post of Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change with alternates Stavros Kalafatis and Asimakis Papageorgiou.
Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos is the new Minister of Education, Religion, Culture and Sports. His deputies are Kostas Tzavaras, Theodoros Papatheodorou (former Rector of the University in the Peloponnese) and Yiannis Ioannidis, who returns to office after several years' break.
The new Minister of Employment is Yiannis Vroutsis and his deputy is Nikos Nikolopoulos.
The head of the Ministry of Health and Social Solidarity is Andreas Lykourentzos and his deputies are Marios Salmas and Fotini Skopouli.
Professor of genetics at the University of Thessaloniki Athanasios Tsaftaris is the new Minister of Rural Development and Food and Maximos Harakopoulos is his deputy.
The new Minister of Public Order and Citizen Protection is Nikos Dendias.
The former caretaker Minister Antonis Roupakiotis, a lawyer by profession, takes the Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights.
Olga Kefalogianni is the only female member of the cabinet, heading the Ministry of Tourism that has been recently restored.
The Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace closed during the government of George Papandreou will be headed by Theodoros Karaoglou - a "blue" deputy from Thessaloniki, where the headquarters of the office is located.
Political adviser to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Dimitris Stamatis has been appointed Minister of State.
Among the interesting facts related to the formation of the cabinet is that contrary to expectations, it does not involve Kyriakos Mitsotakis who was supposed to head the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change. He was offered at the last moment participation as a deputy minister, but he refused.
There were some rumours that weightlifting champion Pyros Dimas was likely to become deputy minister of sports but they did not confirm.
The new government will take oath in the presidency at 7 pm. Minister and Deputy Minister of Finance Vasilis Rapanos and George Mavraganis will not attend the ceremony in order for George Zanias to represent Greece at the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels as a caretaker minister.
Evangelos Meimarakis will be nominated for chairman of the parliament.
The first meeting of the government will take place at 8 pm.