DPA

ATHENS THE Greek presidency announced the country’s new cabinet on Thursday, appointing veteran banker Vasilis Rapanos as the finance minister faced with the task of renegotiating tough bailout terms with foreign creditors.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras was sworn in on Wednesday as the head of a three-party coalition government after repeat elections held at the weekend and weeks of political uncertainty.

His conservative New Democracy party is backed by the socialist PASOK and Democratic Left parties.

Rapanos is the chairman of the National Bank of Greece and is also an economics professor at Athens University.

He served as an advisor to former socialist prime minister Costas Simitis.

The new 16-member cabinet is to be sworn in at 7 pm (1600 GMT), except for Rapanos, to allow outgoing Finance Minister Giorgos Zanias to represent Greece at Thursday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Luxembourg.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, a former Athens mayor and defence minister, will serve as the country’s foreign minister while the post of defence minister went to former journalist Panos Panagiotopoulos.

A statement from the prime minister’s office said the main aims of the coalition government were: “to boost growth, to review the terms of the memorandum of understanding (regarding the bailout) without jeopardising Greece’s position in the eurozone, to tackle the deficit, bring down public debt and implement structural reforms. “The statement also said that the new government aimed to be smaller and more flexible as well as remaining in power for a full four-year term.

There were 49 ministers and deputy ministers in the interim cabinet under technocrat premier Lucas Papademos.

In Brussels, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso welcomed the new government in a statement, saying: “The Commission stands by Greece and its people. We will continue to work with the Greek authorities to bring Greece back to growth and job creation.” He said that inspectors from the European Union and International Monetary Fund would return to Athens in the coming days to assess the progress of reforms demanded in return for the country’s second bailout. The daily Kathimerini newspaper said Greece would at the meeting of eurozone finance ministers ask for a two-year extension to reduce its public deficit to below 3 per cent of gross domestic product(GDP).

The extension until 2016 would require the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide an extra 16-20 billion euros (20-25 billion dollars) in loans, depending on how deep the country’s recession is.

Greece’s recession has been forecast at 4.5 percent of gross domestic product by the EU/IMF but it is now likely to reach between 6 and 7 per cent.