Antonis Samaras, the head of the conservative New Democracy party that came first in Sunday's election, was to be sworn in as prime minister today after a coalition agreement with two minority partners that support Greece's bailout commitments.
Greece's presidency said the ceremony would take place after Samaras meets President Karolos Papoulias and receives the formal mandate to govern.
Earlier today, New Democracy agreed with Socialist PASOK and the smaller Democratic Left party to form a coalition government after protracted negotiations.
Despite receiving nearly 30% of the vote Sunday, the conservatives lacked enough seats to govern alone and had to seek partners that would also broadly back Greece's pledges to bailout creditors for further austerity and reforms.
The deal ended nearly seven weeks of political uncertainty in debt-crippled Greece that threatened to plunge Europe deeper into a financial crisis with global repercussions.
"Greece has a government," PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos, a former finance minister, said after talks with Samaras today.
He added that the country will be represented at the upcoming meeting of Eurozone finance ministers by outgoing Finance Minister Giorgos Zanias.
The meeting "will be the first big battle on the revision of the bailout agreement, the creation of a framework that will allow us to move to positive growth and to combat unemployment which is the big problem of Greek society," Venizelos said.
Greek stocks rose in response to the news, with Athens shares up 0.6% in the afternoon, limiting earlier gains.
Both Venizelos and Samaras have pledged to try renegotiating some of the harsh austerity measures Greece had to take to secure its bailout loans, which would be stopped if Athens reneged on its commitments.
