The Bank of Greece has announced that it came unanimously decided to propose that the Ministerial Council appoints the former Minister of Finances Yannis Stournaras as Governor, in accordance with its statute.
A day earlier, the Prime Minister Antonis Samaras contacted the outgoing Governor Giorgos Provopoulos and thanked him for his valuable contributions and is thought to have informed him of Mr. Stournaras succeeding him.
It has been rumored that while Mr. Samaras had decided on the appointment of Mr. Stournaras for some time, government partner Evangelos Venizelos resisted the idea and was in favor of reappointing Mr. Provopoulos. Mr. Venizelos appears to have changed opinion after Gikas Hardouvelis was appointed as Minister of Finances.
Aside from the Governor though, the position of Deputy Governor has also been vacated, with the PM’s consultant Yannis Mourmouras and the head of the HFSF Anastasia Sakellariou tipped to replace the outgoing Eleni Louri-Dendrinou.
Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras has repeatedly expressed his disagreement with the appointment of Mr. Stournaras as Governor of the Bank of Greece and clarified that should his party come to power he will seek to have him dismissed similarly to how the Anastasiadis administration in Cyprus forced the Governor of the Bank of Cyprus to resign.
