Greece Reshuffles Cabinet !!!!

Greece's embattled Socialist government announced a sweeping cabinet reshuffle Friday, replacing the country's finance minister in an effort to shore up support for unpopular economic reforms.
In a statement, spokesman George Petalotis said the government had appointed Evangelos Venizelos as finance minister, replacing George Papaconstantinou.
Mr. Papaconstantinou, seen as the architect of those economic reforms, was appointed as environment minister and remains within the government's inner cabinet.
A university law professor who now heads the defense ministry, Mr. Venizelos is an old party hand from the 1980s. He has served as justice minister and government spokesman and stood against Prime Minister George Papandreou for the Socialist party leadership.
"Papaconstantinou is considered both a hero and a villain. A hero by Papandreou for holding probably the most difficult cabinet position in the world, and, unfortunately a villain by many of his colleagues in the cabinet and a big part of the Greek population. I am sure Venizelos will use his advice on how to deal with our creditors," a senior party official said.
The announcement comes after two days of dramatic developments in Greece that included mass protests on the streets of Athens against new austerity measures and an open revolt against those measures within the ruling Socialist party.
The government refit also came after signs of growing discontent inside Mr. Papandreou's party, whose parliamentary deputies had grown increasingly uneasy over the stormy public protests. Two of his party's deputies resigned Thursday. Two others defected from the party line earlier in the week.
"This reshuffle is a response to the internal party revolt," said Panagiotis Petrakis, head of the economics department at the University of Athens. "If you look at the appointees, most of the close advisers and friends that Papandreou had appointed to positions have now been removed and replaced with elected Socialist deputies."
"This reshuffle doesn't look like a cabinet really designed to address the current crisis; rather, it looks like a cabinet designed to prepare [the Socialists] for elections," Mr. Petrakis added. "On the other hand, the mid-term austerity package will surely pass now and that is clearly a success for Papandreou. It has helped rally the party base, so that has strengthened Papandreou politically compared with where he was just a few days ago."
The senior party official said Mr. Papandreou chose Venizelos to take the finance portfolio after finding few suitable candidates willing to accept the post.
"The first choice for finance minister was [former European Central Bank vice president Lucas] Papademos, but he declined the offer," the official said. "He told the prime minister he would have accepted to participate if a national unity government could be formed. Finding someone to replace Papaconstantinou was very difficult. Nobody wanted the job."
He said Mr. Venizelos is widely respected within the party and "hopefully his presence will calm down the Greeks" who by the tens of thousands have been holding daily antigovernment protests for the past month in Athens and other cities.
Mr. Venizelos will try to negotiate a second bailout loan with Greece's euro-zone partners and the International Monetary Fund this month. As a prerequisite, Greece must adopt a €28 billion ($40 billion) austerity package that includes deep spending cuts and a series of new taxes.
Set against a volatile political scene in Greece, finance ministers from euro-zone governments are to meet Sunday and Monday in Luxembourg to debate a new bailout deal, which hinges on Greece adhering to its rigid austerity plan.
A senior IMF official said it was a "precondition" of continued financing that Greece pass the budget measures. These measures imply massive job cuts and squeezed household finances affecting Greeks of all ages.
The Greek stock market reacted favorably to the reshuffle. By late morning in Europe, the Athens Stock Exchange general index was up 2.3% at 1235.65 points in moderate turnover.
On Thursday, Greece's international rescuers pledged they would dispense a promised installment of last year's bailout loan—enough to carry Greece through September—but demanded that Mr. Papandreou ram through unpopular budget cuts even as he struggled to quell a revolt within his governing Socialist party.
At an emergency party caucus Thursday evening, Mr. Papandreou vowed he'd stay on as the nation's leader—a day after word leaked that he had privately offered to resign to make way for a national-unity government.
Greek bond prices sank to record lows after Thursday's turmoil, and the country's crisis effectively turned into a three-ring circus.
In Washington, the International Monetary Fund is leaning on Europe to approve a new, longer-term bailout for Greece. In Brussels, euro-zone officials are squabbling over whether Greece's private creditors should be forced to bear some of the burden of that second bailout.
In a speech Thursday, Mr. Papandreou said his government had made mistakes in handling Greece's economic crisis, but he also criticized other European leaders for failing to stem the wider debt crisis.
Still, he promised his lawmakers that Greece's fellow European Union member nations would come to the country's rescue with a fresh loan deal of "mammoth proportions," though difficult talks still lie ahead.
"We are at a critical moment. Either Europe will write history, or history will write off the European Union," Mr. Papandreou said.
A small moment of relief came from Washington on Thursday: The IMF, which is contributing €30 billion of the €110 billion bailout forged last May, signaled it would assent to releasing a payment to Greece in early July even if euro-zone governments didn't work out their differences on the second bailout this month, as they had promised.
The euro zone grabbed at the chance to delay a fractious debate that has pitted France and the European Central Bank against Germany. In a statement Thursday, Olli Rehn, the European Union's economic commissioner, said he now expected a decision on the second bailout in mid-July—but that Greece would get money first to tide it through the summer.