Turnaround for Greece as Pierrakakis tapped to | Money News

Greece’s finance minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis was elected Eurogroup chief on Thursday in a outstanding turnaround for a nation that a decade in the past was on the brink of crashing out of the euro.

Pierrakakis’s friends appointed him to lead the highly effective panel of finance ministers from Europe’s 20-country single currency space during a assembly in Brussels. The runner-up was Vincent Van Peteghem of Belgium.

“The old distinctions which existed in Europe… between the north and the south, the east and the west, the so-called frugals and the so-called spenders seem to have subsided,” Pierrakakis instructed a press convention about his appointment.

“This is because the challenges that we face are more or less common,” he mentioned, citing defence spending and tech innovation as key priorities.

Pierrakakis replaces Ireland’s Paschal Donohoe — who resigned in a shock transfer final month.

The 42-year-old Pierrakakis has been in charge of Greece’s funds since March, after earlier stints as minister of digital governance and schooling.

His success displays his nation’s spectacular about-turn from eurozone black sheep to shiny star.

“Greece has come such a long way in the past 10 years. Your election today as President of the Eurogroup, dear Kyriakos @Pierrakakis, is a meaningful recognition of that progress,” European Union chief Antonio Costa wrote on X.

Greece’s colossal debt and financial woes have been the Eurogroup’s important preoccupation during the euro-area disaster — which for a whereas threatened Athens’s membership within the currency union.

“Greece withstood. It’s a testament of the collective strength of a people. It is a testament of European solidarity, of receiving help at the most dire of times,” Pierrakakis mentioned, additionally crediting the federal government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

After years of austerity and painful reforms the Mediterranean nation now runs a finances surplus, and enjoys an financial growth that outpaces most EU nations.

– ‘Happy ending’ –

“Today is a proud day for our country,” Mitsotakis mentioned in a assertion, hailing the election as a “shining recognition of our country’s positive trajectory.”

Pierrakakis will take workplace from Friday and can serve a two-and-a-half-year time period. He is predicted to chair his first assembly on January 19, 2026.

“It’s a happy ending; a little over 10 years ago, it was the Eurogroup that devised and implemented measures to rescue Greece,” mentioned France’s finance minister Roland Lescure.

“Greece made efforts, recovered and is now reducing its public debt, so this is an extremely powerful national and European story.”

Van Peteghem and Pierrakakis — who each hail from the centre-right — have been vying to substitute Donohoe after the 51-year-old introduced on November 20 that he was stepping down, having solely been re-elected in July.

He has since taken up a senior position on the World Bank.

The Eurogroup chief carries weight in policymaking, and Donohoe counted among the many most influential voices in Brussels, alongside EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa.

Created in 1997, the physique coordinates the financial and budgetary insurance policies of the 20 international locations of the eurozone, which can quickly quantity 21, as Bulgaria prepares to undertake the only currency on January 1.

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