After several days of operatic farce alternating with tragedy, the major non-leftwing parties agreed to form a government led by Lucas Papademos. So, who is he?
A cautious, soft-spoken technocrat who, as governor of the country’s central bank, helped bring Greece into the eurozone in January 2001, Lucas Papademos becomes prime minister of a transitional government with virtually the sole objective of keeping Greece within the single currency.Born in Athens in 1947, Papademos attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1970, a master’s degree in electrical engineering in 1972, and a PhD in economics in 1978. Taught economics at Columbia University from 1975 to 1984, and at the University of Athens from 1988 to 1993.
Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 1980, and joined the Bank of Greece (BoG) in 1985 as chief economist, rising to deputy governor in 1993 and taking over as governor in 1994.
Was widely condemned in the late 1990s for suggesting - rightly as it turned out - that Greece's stock market was a dangerous bubble.
During his tenure at the BoG, Greece switched from the drachma to the euro.
Left the BoG in 2002 to become vice-president of the European Central Bank (ECB) under president Jean-Claude Trichet until 2010.
He's been advising the outgoing PM since on economic matters, which is not really reassuring given how badly the crisis has been handled, though I do like the fact that his first degree was Physics.