SYRIZA’s shadow cabinet to exercise ‘hands-on opposition’
Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), Greece’s main coalition party, which came second in the June 17 polls but rejected an invitation to join a coalition government with New Democracy, PASOK and Democratic Left, has put together a team of party officials to oversee the country’s ministries.
The shadow cabinet’s job will be to oversee the work being carried out at the country’s ministries and to make alternative proposals.
“SYRIZA will be exercising hands-on, combative and responsible opposition, with strict oversight and also with its own proposals,» party spokesman Dimitris Papadimoulis said.
“It will be an opposition worthy of the 27 percent of the vote that put us in Parliament,» he added.
Economics professor Euclid Tsakalotos, who studied under Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras at Oxford University, will handle economic issues. ?nother academic, Giorgos Stathakis, will deal with development matters, and labor lawyer Alexis Mitropoulos will focus on administrative reform.
A special committee, meanwhile, has been set up to deal exclusively with matters concerning the application of the memorandum signed by Greece and its lenders for structural reforms. This will consist of Mitropoulos, lawyer Zoe Konstantopoulos, economist Yiannis Dragasakis and former unionist Dimitris Stratoulis.
