The Best of GRReporter
flag_bg flag_gr flag_gb

live Professor Gikas Hardouvelis is Greece’s new Minister of Finance

09 June 2014 / 17:06:42  GRReporter
3198 reads

The long-awaited reshuffling of the Greek cabinet took place on Monday, which is not a workday for the public sector, and the new composition was announced late in the afternoon. After long negotiations and speculation regarding the name of the person who will take the "hot" seat of the Ministry of Finance it is already clear that Economics Professor Gikas Hardouvelis is Greece’s new Minister of Finance.

Some of the key ministers in the government have retained their posts whereas the leadership of other departments has been totally changed.

The composition of the new government is as follows:

Prime Minister - Antonis Samaras

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs - Evangelos Venizelos

Minister of Finance - Gikas Hardouvelis, replacing former Minister Yiannis Stournaras who will probably be the new governor of the Bank of Greece

Minister of Defence - Dimitris Avramopoulos

Minister of Interior - Argiris Dinopoulos, replacing Yiannis Michelakis

Minister of Administrative Reform and e-Governance - Kyriakos Mitsotakis

Minister of Development and Competitiveness - Nikos Dendias, replacing Kostis Hatzidakis

Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Networks - Michalis Chrysochoidis

Minister of Education and Religions - Andreas Loverdos, replacing Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos

Minister of Culture and Sport - Kostas Tasoulas, the post being occupied by Panos Panagiotopoulos to this date

Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change - Yiannis Maniatis

Minister for Employment, Social Insurance and Welfare - Yiannis Vroutsis

Minister of Health - Makis Voridis, replacing Adonis Georgiadis

Minister of Agricultural Development and Food - George Karasmanis, replacing Athanasios Tsavtaris

Minister of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights - Haralambos Athanasiou

Minister of Public Order and Citizen Protection - Vassilis Kikilias, replacing Nikos Dendias

Minister of Tourism - Olga Kefalogianni

Minister of Merchant Marine - Miltiadis Varvitsiotis

Minister of Macedonia - Thrace - George Orfanos, replacing Theodoros Karaoglou

Minister of State - Dimitris Stamatis

Government Spokesman - Sofia Voultepsi, replacing former spokesman Simos Kedikoglou.

Social network users reacted instantly and faster compared to political analysts. While their comments on the new Minister of Finance are appreciative, they spare no criticism of many of the new additions to the government.

"Could the purpose of the cabinet reshuffling be to give SYRIZA and Golden Dawn priority in the next elections?"

"With 2-3 exceptions the composition of the cabinet is a shame, shame, shame."

"We are hurling abuse at Samaras and Venizelos all day long but otherwise expect them to find serious people and recruit them in the ministries. We could not be more ridiculous."

Users are particularly critical towards the new Minister of Education, namely, Andreas Loverdos who has remained in history for the fact that, in his capacity as Minister of Health, he ordered in 2012 the apprehension and arrest of HIV positive women, accusing them of being prostitutes and exposing public health to threat.

"The Minister of Health, this nasty man, this rotter. You fascist, we do not forget what you did to HIV positive women."

"Elia - Elia - Loverdos with children! (I hope we have no HIV positive teachers ...)," are some of them.

Many users comment on the strong presence of PASOK’s representatives in the new government as follows:

"I was afraid that Venizelos would fire Samaras in his haste."

"What would happen if, instead of 8%, PASOK (Elia) had won 10%-12%-15% of the vote?"

"The old PASOK party is here, ‘broken, but stronger’", journalist Kostas Stoupas paraphrased the former party slogan.

In turn political commentators also report the strong presence of PASOK in the new cabinet, noting as the most serious shortcoming the fact that all former ministers who carried out, or at least initiated, reforms in their sectors have been removed from their posts, including Adonis Georgiadis from the Ministry of Health and Kostis Hatzidakis from the Ministry of Development.

The new ministers will take an oath in a religious ritual led by Greek Archbishop Ieronymos in the presence of President Karolos Papoulias and Prime Minister Antonis Samaras at 3:30 pm on Tuesday, 10 June.

Tags: PoliticsCabinet reshufflingMinister of FinanceGikas Hardouvelis
SUPPORT US!
GRReporter’s content is brought to you for free 7 days a week by a team of highly professional journalists, translators, photographers, operators, software developers, designers. If you like and follow our work, consider whether you could support us financially with an amount at your choice.
Subscription
You can support us only once as well.
blog comments powered by Disqus