Greece's new unity government to be named - The Best from Greece

Posted on: 07/Nov/2011

ATHENS, Greece, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Key members of near-bankrupt Greece's new government will be named Monday, a spokesman said, as eurozone finance ministers meet to discuss Greece's plight.

"We will have the composition of the new government ... and, if all goes well, we hope to have it sworn in by the end of the week," spokesman Elias Mossialos told reporters Sunday night.

The interim government is expected to remain in place until a general election is held Feb. 19, Greece's Finance Ministry said early Monday.

Embattled Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and conservative opposition leader Antonis Samaras were to meet in the morning to decide on the new unity government's composition, President Karolos Papoulias' office said.

Papandreou will resign after the new government is formed, he said.

"I am not interested in staying on in this new government as prime minister," Papandreou told his Cabinet Sunday.

"I couldn't have been clearer. I don't play games and neither do I gamble the country's fortunes," a transcript released by his office indicated he said.

The unity government will be charged with enacting an Oct. 27 bailout agreement, which writes off $138 billion in debt held by Greece's private creditors and commits another $180 billion to help Greece meet its remaining commitments -- provided the government enacts a new round of painfully deep austerity measures that eurozone leaders said last week were not negotiable.

They were greeted furiously by austerity-weary Greeks.

Greece must get its house in acceptable order quickly enough to receive an $11 billion installment from Europe's bailout fund by next month.

Greece, which says it will run out of money by mid-December if it does not receive the payment, was originally supposed to get the money in September. But the payment was held up because Greece was so far off the mark in meeting its commitments, officials said.

Eurozone leaders say the bailout's draconian measures are their best weapon against letting debt-crippled Greece default and possibly bring down the rest of the union with it.

The Greek government change comes amid growing possible government changes in Italy and Spain. These countries' economies, the eurozone's third and fifth largest, could soon follow Greece in failing under a debt crisis, economists say.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi fought for his political life Monday as his parliamentary majority appeared to unravel ahead of a key parliamentary vote Tuesday that could end his 17-year political career, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported.

Italy's debt is 120 percent of its gross domestic product.

"And [Spanish Prime Jose Luis Rodriguez] Zapatero and his Spanish Socialist Workers Party will likely both be out after the Nov. 20 parliamentary elections," Maria Elena Ferrer, political author and principal of the non-partisan Humanamente consulting firm of Valencia, Spain, and suburban New York, told United Press International Sunday night.

Zapatero announced April 2 he wouldn't seek a third term. Spain's rising debt is about 65 percent of GDP, half of that of Greece but double Spain's 2007 levels. Its GDP was flat in the third quarter, the Spanish central bank said. Its unemployment rate is 22.6 percent, more than twice the European average.

The eurozone finance ministers meeting in Brussels Monday will discuss Italy and Spain's debt crises, as well as Greece's, officials said.

They will also search for new sources of capital to boost the eurozone's main bailout fund to $1.4 trillion after the United States and emerging powers refused to commit fresh funds at the Group of 20 summit last week.

source: http://www.upi.com

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