Eurozone crisis/Catalogs

The Principal Actors

Jose Manuel Barroso

President of the European Commission since 2004 (website). Previously Prime Minister of Portugal and leader of its Social Democratic Party.

Silvio Berlusconi

Former Prime Minister of Italy (2008-2011 and two previous terms). Businessman and media proprietor. Founder of the conservative Forza Italia political party. The subject of alleged sex scandals. Has been accused of embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting, and attempting to bribe a judge, but has never been convicted. A range of polls in September 2011 indicated that some 80 per cent of Italians had lost confidence in his ability to govern, and he lost the support of parliament and was forced to resign in November 2011.

Pedro Passos Coelho

Prime Minister of Portugal since June 2011. Economics graduate and former businessman. Leader of the Social Democratic Party.

Mario Draghi

Governor of the Bank of Italy since 16 January 2006. President of the European Central Bank from November 2011.(interview 14/12/2011)

Francois Hollande

Socialist party candidate for the 2012 French presidential election (website). (BBC profile)

Jean-Claude Juncker

President of Luxembourg since 1995 website. Previously leader of the Christian Socialist Party. Chairman of the Eurogroup of eurozone Finance Ministers. Proponent of eurobonds.

Angela Merkel

Chancellor of Germany since 2005 (Economist profile website). Leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union and head of a coalition with the centre-right Free Democratic Party since re-elected in 2009 (the next elections are due in 2013). Under international pressure to rescue Greece and under domestic pressure to abandon it (a poll conducted in September 2011 by the Forsa Institute, 80% of Germans are against rescuing Greece). Her approval rating dropped to 36 per cent in August 2011, compared with 60 per cent 3 years previously. (Attitudes to the crisis).

Mario Monti

Prime Minister of Italy from 14 November 2011. Distinguished Italian economist.(FT profile) Studied economics at Yale under James Tobin. Former Chancellor and Professor of Political Economy at Bocconi University. European Commissioner for Competition from 1999 to 2004. Founder of the Bruegel economics think-tank and founder member of the Spinelli Group which seeks to promote greater European integration. (Attitudes to the crisis).

Lucas Papademos

Prime Minister of Greece from 10th November 2011. Distinguished Greek economist and former vice president of the European Central Bank. Fiscal conservative. As President of the Greek central bank he negotiated Greek's entry to the eurozone. (BBC profile).

George Papandreou

Former Prime Minister of Greece 2009-2011 (website). Leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (BBC profile). Resigned 07 November 2011.

Mariano Rajoy

Prime Minister of Spain since November 2011. Leader of the Partido Popular (PP) conservative party. Interior Minister and other ministerial posts in the Aznar governments of 1996-2004 (website) (BBC profile).

Horst Reichenbach

Leader of the European Comission's Greece task force since July 2011. Previously Vice President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Olli Rehn

European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs since 2010. (website)

Antonis Samaras

Greek economist and politician who has been leader of New Democracy, Greece's major conservative party and main opposition party, since 2009.

Nicholas Sarkozy

President of France since 2007 website. A lawyer by training. Previously president of the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement. His initially high approval rating fell to 30 percent in April 2011 and recovered slightly to reach 37 percent at the start of September. Intends to stand for re-election in April 2012, but he is said to be France's most unpopular president. His re-election prospects are said to have been set back by his party's loss of control of the Senate, but enhanced by the success of France's intervention in the Libyan civil war. (Attitudes to the crisis).

Wolfgang Schaeuble

German Finance Minister since 2009. Former leader of the Christian Democratic Union. Studied economics and law before qualifying as a lawyer and entering the tax administration office in the southern state of Baden Würtemberg. (FT profile) (interviews) (website).

José Sócrates

Former Prime Minister of Portugal (2004-2011). Leader of the Socialist Party. Succeeded as Prime Minister by Pedro Passos Coelho in June 2011.

Giulio Tremonti

Italian Finance Minister since 2005. Professor of Law. Has a reputation for fiscal prudence. Weakened by rumoured connection with a graft scandal in 2011[2].

Jean-Claude Trichet

President of the European Central Bank since 2003 (term of office ends November 2011).

Herman van Rompuy

President of the European Union, January 2010 t0 May 2012. Former Prime Minister of Belgian since 2008 (BBC profile)

Evangelos Venizelos

Greek Finance Minister since June 2011. Socialist Party member. Constitutional lawyer. Rival to George Papandreou. (BBC profile)

Jens Weidmann

German Bundesbank (central bank) President since May 2011. Formerly principal economic advisor to Angela Merkel (Reuters profile). Opposed to the use of the European Central Bank as lender of last resort to governments.

Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff

President of Germany since June 2010. Formerly Premier of Lower Saxony. Member of the Christian Democratic Union.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

Former Prime Minister of Spain 2008 to 2011 website. Leader of the ruling Socialist Party.