Cabinet reshuffle talk dies down
Talk of Labor Minister Savvas Tsitouridis being called to resign showed signs of dying down yesterday after top ministers openly supported him, while the government moved to dispel rumors of a Cabinet reshuffle. Alternate government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros said Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is not planning to change his ministers. «There is no issue of any reshuffle,» Antonaros said. Finance Minister Giorgos Alogoskoufis also indicated he supported Tsitouridis’s decisions in front of a parliamentary economic committee looking into the purchasing of overpriced bonds by state pension funds. As part of its investigation, the committee has called three senior J.P. Morgan officials to give their version of events. Financial services group J.P. Morgan underwrote the 280-million-euro bond at the center of the scandal that was allegedly passed onto funds at prices well above those quoted on the market. Officials from J.P. Morgan, which has since offered to buy back the bond, are not obligated by law to face the committee.
