Greece to name cabinet as bailout battle looms

The three coalition parties were to hold a final meeting to hammer out a common policy statement

Greece's new Prime Minister Antonis Samaras prepared today to name his coalition government to take on the uphill task of renegotiating the terms of an unpopular EU-IMF bailout.

The three coalition parties forming a coalition after Sunday's parliamentary elections were to hold a final meeting to hammer out a common policy statement and finalise the cabinet.

Samaras's conservative New Democracy party, which won the vote, is the senior coalition partner and will be backed by the Pasok socialists and the moderate Democratic Left party who will contribute technocrats to the cabinet.

"We expect the cabinet to be announced after the meeting," a New Democracy source told AFP.

The cabinet lineup will be unveiled as the Eurogroup eurozone finance ministers meet in Luxembourg for what is expected to be a late-night battle on the Greek and Spanish fronts that will also touch on runaway borrowing costs for Italy and an expected request from Cyprus for its ailing banks.

Samaras was sworn in yesterday as prime minister, vowing to do his utmost to restore growth after five years of recession.

"With God's help we will do everything we can to take the country out of the crisis," the 61-year-old former foreign minister told reporters after a formal ceremony at the presidential palace that ended two months of political deadlock.

Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos said the new government would begin "a major battle" to revise the bailout at an EU summit in Brussels next week.

The bailout imposed harsh austerity measures on Greece in return for funds to avoid default and popular discontent over the measures helped the Syriza party that opposes them grab a close second place in Sunday's election.

The new government's first priority will be to restore contact with international auditors and resume the flow of loans that was suspended ahead of Sunday's election that followed six weeks after an inconclusive May poll.

The International Monetary Fund is already pressing to send a team of experts to Greece as soon as possible to examine "shortfalls" over the past two months.

But renegotiating the terms of its bailout will prove tough.