ATHENS (AFP) – Greece’s Parliament was sworn in Wednesday (July 17) after July 7 elections that saw a broad conservative victory end over four years of leftist rule.

The six-party Parliament will officially begin its functions after electing a Speaker on Thursday.

New Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government has made boosting sluggish growth a priority, powered by tax cuts and accompanied by privatisation deals.

The 51-year-old Harvard graduate and former McKinsey consultant has also pledged to create jobs and get rid of obstacles to business.

Mr Mitsotakis will outline his government’s policies at the weekend before a vote of confidence late on Sunday.

His New Democracy party has 158 lawmakers in the 300-seat chamber.

On Tuesday, Athens placed seven-year bonds at a record-low yield in its first foray into the debt markets since the election.

The Greek debt agency said it had raised €2.5 billion (S$3.82 billion) in the sale, while the prime minister said the yield of 1.9 per cent was a “record low”.

A previous seven-year sale in February 2018 had a yield of 3.5 per cent amid world market volatility.

Starting in 2020, Mr Mitsotakis has promised to cut a hated property tax called ENFIA – brought in by a previous New Democracy-led government during the economic crisis – by 30 per cent over two years.

REFORMS PACKAGE

He has also offered to reduce income tax thresholds and to gradually cut tax on business profits by 8 per cent.

But just hours after his July 7 victory, euro zone finance ministers warned the new government to stick to the country’s strict public spending commitments.

“We must keep our commitments, this is the only way I know to gain credibility,” said Eurogroup chief Mario Centeno.

On Tuesday, the euro zone’s bailout fund director and a key EU official overseeing Greece’s debt repayments, Mr Klaus Regling, suggested that tax cuts be coupled “with a broader tax base”.

In a meeting with Regling later on Tuesday, Mr Mitsotakis “confirmed that Greece would respect fiscal targets”, the prime minister’s office said.

During the election campaign, Mr Mitsotakis said he would persuade Greece’s creditors to accept the easing of targets with “a comprehensive reforms package”.

The current framework negotiated with creditors by the previous leftist Syriza government holds Greece to a primary budget surplus of 3.5 per cent to 2022 – but the conservatives say that target stifles growth.

There are two fewer parties in Parliament than in the previous chamber, but two of them are new – Greek Solution, a nationalist party formed by TV salesman Kyriakos Velopoulos, and MeRA25, an anti-austerity party founded by maverick economist and Mr Tsipras’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.

“We are here to say a massive ‘no’ to whatever strengthens (Greece’s debt burden),” Mr Varoufakis, whose party elected nine lawmakers, said before being sworn in on Wednesday.

In contrast, neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn was shut out of Parliament for the first time since 2012.

Golden Dawn, until recently Greece’s third-ranking party, is in disarray amid an ongoing trial for the 2013 murder of an anti-fascist rapper, allegedly carried out with the knowledge of senior Golden Dawn members.

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