Sachinidis is Greece’s New Finance Minister

Philippos Sachinidis is Greece’s new Finance Minister. Sachinidis, 49, replaces Evangelos Venizelos who resigned on Monday in order to lead socialist party PASOK to parliamentary elections. “Philippos Sachinidis was appointed Finance Minister” the prime minister’s office said on Wednesday in a statement just two hours before Sachinidis’ oath ceremony which was already scheduled for 2:45 pm.

Philippos Sachinidis has been serving as deputy finance minister since November 2011, when the Papademos government came to power and was holding the same post also in Papandreou’s government. He has a Phd in Economics and worked as an adviser in the economics office of socialist Prime Minister Costas Simitis.

Given the fact, the parliamentary elections are supposed to take place end of April, beginning of May, this is a good choice as he will not have to start to read the economy files right from the scratch….

Sachinidis has a thorough picture of Greece’s progress in terms of loan agreements and he will be invited to attend Eurogroup meetings that will take place before the Greek elections.

Philippos Sachnidis CV as published at the official website of Greek Finance Ministry

Philippos Sachinidis was born in 1963 and grew up in Larissa.

He studied Economics at the University of Piraeus’ Graduate School of Industrial Studies and and received his Master’s degree from Queens College, City University of New York. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Manchester. He was granted a scholarship by the Council of Economic and Social Researches of UK.

He taught Economics at the Manchester School of Management between 1991 and 1994.

He started his professional career as a researcher of the Foundation of Economic and Industrial Research. He served as Economic Analyst at the National Bank of Greece and as a Special Advisor at the Economic Department of ex-Prime Minister Mr. Konstantinos Simitis’ Cabinet.

He also served as a Chairman of the Committee “Employment: Risks, Challenges, Prospects” and was a member of the “State – Market and the Provision of Public Goods” Committee at the Institute of Strategic and Economic Studies (ISTAME).

In 2007, he was elected as a Member of the Hellenic Parliament. Between 2007 and 2009 he was a Member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Production and Trade and the Secretary of the Development Committee of PASOK.

He is a member of the National Council of PASOK.

In the 2009 elections, he was reelected and took office as the Deputy Minister of Finance.

He has a variety of publications in academic journals and in the press.