The official, Luis de Guindos, the new economics minister, had most recently been director of the Center for the Financial Sector, an institute in Madrid run by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the IE Business School. Before that, however, he was secretary of state for the economy until 2004, when Mr. Rajoy’s Popular Party was last in power.
He returned to investment banking and ended up confronting the financial crisis from the frontline as head of the Spanish subsidiary of Lehman Brothers in the two years before its bankruptcy.
A month after the Popular Party routed the Socialists in the Nov. 20 general election, Mr. Rajoy read out his list of ministers in a televised address on Wednesday night, without making any further comment. The government will have 14 members, compared with 16 in the previous Socialist administration of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Mr. Rajoy had refused to discuss his ministerial choices until his presentation to King Juan Carlos earlier in the day. In the end, the prime minister opted for a team containing several party veterans, including some, like Mr. de Guindos, who already formed part of the government of José María Aznar, Spain’s last conservative prime minister, a decade ago.
In contrast, two other countries with troubled economies now have governments that are led by respected — albeit unelected — technocrats: Lucas Papademos in Greece and Mario Monti in Italy. In Portugal, which is also struggling, a third of the ministerial portfolios in the center-right government that won a snap election in June were given to independents with no party affiliation, including Vítor Gaspar, the finance minister.
“This is a government that is very solid and predictable and will stick to the austerity line drawn by Mr. Rajoy,” Arturo Fernández, vice president of the CEOE, the employers’ federation, told Spanish television. “De Guindos already did a very good job during his time” in the Aznar government, he added.
Mr. Rajoy is taking charge after eight years as opposition leader and two losses to Mr. Zapatero, in 2004 and 2008.
Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, the mayor of the capital, Madrid, will become justice minister. His departure paves the way for Ana Botella, the wife of Mr. Aznar, to take charge of the city.
Mr. Rajoy’s deputy will be Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, one of his closest allies within the Popular Party.
Miguel Arias Cañete is Spain’s new agriculture minister, returning to take charge of a portfolio that he had in Mr. Aznar’s government.
The Socialists are leaving office discredited by the downturn of a once seemingly robust economy that, since the onset of the world financial crisis, has been shredded by the collapse of the property sector and debt obligations that are also now consuming the other South European economies that use the euro.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6cf3d0ae5760a26ed28d36d1594df8cd
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