PROFILE: Lucas Papademos - architect of Greece's eurozone entry

By Takis Tsafos und Alexander Missal Nov 8, 2011, 16:48 GMT

Athens - The man who supervised Greece's entry to the eurozone will be the new prime minister, as the country's future in the common currency zone hangs in the balance.

Lucas Demetrios Papademos, 64, has never held political office. He was Greece's central banker for years and also served several years as vice president of the European Central Bank (ECB).

The new interim coalition government will be sworn in at 2 pm (1200 GMT) Friday, according to a statement from the president's office.

The trained electrical engineer and economist is the embodiment of an expert, whose sober-mindedness and expertise could be key to securing the trust of international creditors in the new unity government.

Whether he has the charisma needed to convince the austerity-addled Greeks that the draconian tax hikes and spending cuts demanded by the country's creditors in return for a second rescue package are necessary remains to be seen.

Born in Athens, Papademos studied at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston before becoming an economics lecturer at Columbia University in New York.

In the mid-1980s he returned to Greece, where he joined the central bank, rising through the ranks to become the bank's governor in 1994.

Working with the Socialist government, he prepared Greece for the European Monetary Union in 2001 and the switch from the drachma to the euro in 2002.

For his part in that transition he won widespread respect in Greece.

It has since emerged that Greece cooked its books for years to hide from the European Union a deficit that was three times bigger than originally thought - but that revelation did not dent Papademos' reputation as he had advocated cutting the debt.

In 2002 he resigned from the central bank and moved to Frankfurt to take up the vice presidency of the ECB.

His experience as central banker of one of the EU's poorest countries served him in helping bloc newcomers in Eastern Europe prepare for the euro.

Compared with just-retired French ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet, Papademos came across as a pure number cruncher, who took little pleasure in public appearances.

After eight years at the ECB, he stepped down in 2010.

The economist, who is not a member of a political party, had earlier refused an offer by outgoing premier George Papandreou to play a key role in his team.

In light of that fact, it seems unlikely he harboured secret hopes of succeeding Papandreou. More probable is that he was looking forward to a quiet retirement, devoted to his academic pursuits.

At the same time, as the crisis worsened, he maintained his political contacts, who have now catapulted him into the spotlight.