Galery

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At 11:00AM Georgios Papandreou will take an oath as a Prime Minister in front of the President of Greece Karolos Papoulyas. Meanwhile the negotiations about the structure of the new government, which will be announced in the afternoon, are continuing. The presidential bills about the structure of the government and the merging of the ministries are also prepared.

For now it is clear that PASOK leader Georgios Papandreou, who received an order to form the new government yesterday, will organize a cabinet in a tighter format – with fewer ministries, less deputy ministers and more women presence.

Through merging the number of ministries will be 14 instead of 16, as they were in the previous government, and the number of deputy ministers will be 10. This means that the new PM team will consist of 35 people.

The name of the ministers will be announced today but the new government will take an oath tomorrow, because the necessary presidential bills need to be signed, which confirm the change of cabinet.

The most important changes are the creation of a separate ministry of environment and the old ministry of environment, regions and public orders will join the former ministry of transportation and form a Ministry of Infrastructure.

Also it is expected that the ministries of culture and tourism will be combined. Also a new ministry will be created for citizen protection, which will take over the management of the Greek police, firefighting forces, port authorities and civil protection.

The Ministry of Economy will be autonomous from the Ministry of Finances and except for the fiscal politics, it is expected to take also the field of shipping development.

It seems that Mr. Papandreou is reviewing to dismiss the government speaker position by replacing it with positions for print representatives in each ministry, following the European Commission model. It is also expected that a representative of the PM will be appointed and talks point at the name Pavlos Geroulanos.

Based on latest information from Monday night, provided by in.gr, most likely the new members of the government will be:

Louka Katzeli, who will probably take over the Ministry of Economy, Development and Shipping. Mrs. Katzeli is a professor in the Economy Department in Athens University and she was a director of the Development center in the Organization for Economic Development in 2003-2007.

Georgios Papakonstantinou –  probably minister of finances. Mr. Papakonstantinou was PASOK member of the European parliament.

Andreas Loverdos or Hristos Papoutzis – candidates for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For now, it is not out the question that Georgios Papandreou might take over the position of Greece’s first dimplomat. It is expected that the position of deputy minister will be taken by Dimitris Droutzas.

Hristos Papoutzis – his name is present as a candidate for the Ministry of Defense and there are talks that his deputy will be Mihalis Karhimakis.

Yannis Ragousis – minister candidate for the Ministry of Public Administration and Electronic Management.

Anna Diamandopoulou – candidate for minister of education and continued education. Mrs. Diamandopoulou used to be a Commissioner in the European Commission and a chairwoman of the European Socialist Party.

Fofi Genimata – Ministry of Health and Social Politics and her deputy will be Mr. Georgios Koutroumanis.

Dimitris Repas or Haris Kastanidis – candidates for the Ministry of Infrastructure. Dimitris Repas used to be minister of print during Kostas Simitis’ government.

Mihalis Hrisohoidis – candidate for minister of environment, energetic and green development. His deputy will be Spiros Kouvelis.

Kostas Skandalisdis or Evi Hristofilopoulos – candidates for the labor ministry.

Haris Kastanidis or Mariliza Xenoyanakopoulo for the ministry of civil protection.

Evangelos Venizalos or Filipos Petzalnikos or Dinos Revlyas for the ministry of justice. It is also expected that Mr. Venizelos might be a chairman of the parliament.

Maria Damanaki or Petros Evtimiou for ministers of culture.

Panayotis Beglitis or Filipos Sahinidis or Katerina Matzeli for ministry of agriculture.