Two new Foreign and Defense Ministers in Greece

(BRUSSELS2) Budgetary and political crises oblige, the Greek government has been reshuffled. The Minister of Defence, Evangelos Venizelos, was, in fact, called upon to replace the Minister of Finances who had to be exfiltrated urgently in view of the tension in the street. At Defense and Foreign Affairs, two relatives of Prime Minister Papandreou arrive.

Panos Beglitis, takes the post of holder in the Ministry of Defence. Beglitis is doubly familiar with the position because since the arrival of PASOK (the Greek socialist party) in power, he was deputy minister and has taken care of numerous files, in particular industrial or linked to relations with the United States. He was also for years PASOK's rapporteur on defense and foreign policy issues. A graduate of the University of Athens Law (in 1980), he is a French-speaking and Francophile since he holds a DEA in international law from Paris XI (Villetaneuse) and in international relations and defense from Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (1982-1985) then did the ENA (1982-1985). He became a member of PASOK in 1985 and embarked on a career as a diplomat in 1987, served as adviser to the permanent representation to the European Union in Brussels from 1992 to 1996, served as director of the press service of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1999-2004).

At Foreign Affairs arrives a MEP, Stravros Lambrinidis. A close friend of the Prime Minister also. Born in 1962, a law graduate from Yale University in the United States, then a lawyer at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington (1988-1993), he was indeed special adviser to Giorgos Papandreou when the latter was Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, then Minister for Education (1994-1996) then Director of the team of Minister for Foreign Affairs Theodoros Pangalos (1996). In the European Parliament, he was a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, as well as of the Constitutional Committee. He was also a member of two parliamentary delegations with the United States on the one hand, with Iran on the other. He is the author of a report on the protection of vital infrastructures (against terrorism) as well as on security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet (the European Hadopi law