Greece’s new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras unveiled a cabinet that includes an outspoken bailout critic as finance minister, signaling that Greece’s new coalition government aims to take a tough line in upcoming debt negotiations with the country’s international creditors. The new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, is an economist who describes himself as a libertarian Marxist. An academic who most recently taught at the University of Texas, he has blasted the steep spending cuts called for under the terms of Greece’s financial rescue as "fiscal waterboarding” and recently described Europe’s new growth plan to address the crisis as a "stupidity” that would fall short of its goals. Mr. Varoufakis is now part of a growing team of prominent critics of Europe’s economic approach, appointed with the task ofrolling back Greece’s austerity planand reducing the country’s massive debt load with its international creditors.
The cabinet—presented just two days after Mr. Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party swept to power on a wave of support from austerity-weary voters—also included several appointments from the right-wing Independent Greeks party, Syriza’s junior coalition partner. The coveted defense ministry position went to Panos Kammenos, the head of the Independent Greeks. Mr. Kammenos, an arch-conservative who shares Mr. Tsipras’s antiausterity views, has been a harsh critic of Turkey and has called for tightening restrictions on immigrants in Greece.
Mr. Tsipras’s selection of the two ministers suggests he has no plans to retreat from promises to reverse years of spending cuts and unpopular reforms. The cabinet’s 40 members, who were sworn in later Tuesday, assumed responsibilities today.
The Greek team that will negotiate with the country’s creditors includes several other members with antiausterity credentials. Among them is 68-year-old Yannis Dragasakis, a former senior member of Greece’s Communist party who has been appointed as deputy prime minister and is expected to play an overall coordinating role in the new government’s economic policy. Georgios Stathakis, a 62-year-old academic who also has roots in Greece’s Communist party, was named as head of a newly merged economics superministry. In line with Syriza’s campaign promises to slim down government, the party has merged Greece’s development ministry with three other ministries charged with transport, merchant marine and tourism.
The country’s foreign-affairs ministry is now headed by Nikos Kotzias, a 64-year-old professor of politics who was previously a member of Greece’s Communist party and has taught at universities in Germany, Britain and the U.S.
Mr. Panayotis Lafazanis, another dedicated Marxist, and a long standing member of Greece’s Communist Party (KKE), and leader of SYRIZA’s radical left faction, has been appointed to head the new enlarged Ministry of Production, Reconstruction, Energy and Environment (YPERAN). Upon taking over his new post Mr. Lafazanis announced that all privatisations in the energy sector are to be put on hold while PPC, the country’s main electricity company is to be strengthened as a state company with the sale of its grid system annulled. Lafazanis refused to discuss at length the government’s plans for policy changes in the sensitive hydrocarbon and natural gas sector and only underlined his support for small scale renewable energy producers.
