November 10, 2011
Lucas Papademos, who was named on Thursday as the leader of Greece's first coalition government in decades, is a renowned economist but has little experience of the rough-and-tumble of political life in Athens.
The former vice president of the European Central Bank agreed to take the job on Thursday, five days after George Papandreou announced he would step down to make way for a government of national unity.
For a country not only burdened by debt but closer to default than ever before, his appointment at the helm of a transitional government in Athens has been generally welcomed. An avuncular figure, Papademos is well respected in the European Union. In the corridors of power in Paris and Berlin, the capitals that count in deciding Greece's fate, he is seen as a safe pair of hands, more capable than most of navigating the crisis-hit nation away from the shores of economic Armageddon.
EU officials say the 64-year-old technocrat fits the bill of being a "neutral" non-partisan personality who can stay out of the snake-pit that is the Greek political scene.
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