New Greek government takes oath of office

Greece's new cabinet of re-elected Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is sworn in, pledging to enforce spending cuts and reforms.  

The new government, which retained the core of the previous cabinet with few new faces, formally took office on Wednesday.

In the new cabinet, Tsipras kept the same team that negotiated the country's latest EU bailout.

He reappointed Euclid Tsakalotos as the finance minister and appointed George Houliarakis, the expert who led the country's bailout negotiations with EU and the International Monetary Fund experts, as the deputy finance minister.

"Our goal is recovery and reconstruction," deputy prime minister Yiannis Dragasakis told reporters before the ceremony. "We have the prerequisites to overcome the difficulties," he added.

The new administration elected Sunday has to focus now on the reforms ranging from changes to the pension and labor systems, to overseeing the recapitalization of banks and discussion of debt relief for the country.

Tsipras’ Syriza party won the general elections in January after winning 36.34 percent of the vote, followed by the New Democracy bloc at 27.81 percent.

He, however, submitted his resignation to President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and asked for the earliest possible election date after seven months in office in a bid to get a strong enough majority to carry out the reforms agreement with Greece’s international lenders in July.

Greece has accepted reforms, including significant pension adjustments, increases to value added taxes, measures to liberalize its economy and tight limits on public spending, in exchange for funding worth up to 86 billion euros (USD 94 billion) to pay its bills and begin to rebuild its economy.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk