New York Times
June 17, 2011
After a week of social and political turmoil, and under mounting pressure to push through new austerity measures, Prime Minister George Papandreou named a new finance minster on Friday as part of a broad cabinet reshuffle aimed at restoring confidence among Greeks and foreign creditors.
Evangelos Venizelos, the former defense minister, replaced Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, who has been the highly visible face of the government’s austerity drive.
Mr. Venizelos, 54, said at an afternoon press conference that he was ready to undertake the “historic challenge” of helping Greece to overcome its debt crisis. “I am leaving defense to go where the real battle is,” he said. In a speech to his new cabinet, Mr. Papandreou tried to rein in dissent and make clear how much was at stake, warning that the country’s debt burden “threatens to destroy us and wreck the lives of millions of Greeks.”
“We have a lot of hard work to do as a government before we are assessed by citizens in elections in 2013,” he added, referring to the year that the Socialists’ four-year term is due to expire and thus a clear indication that he had decided against a snap election.
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