The European Union welcomed the appointment of Lucas Papademos as leader of the Greek interim coalition government. The EU will work with the interim government to finalize the second financial assistance program for Greece. Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, European Commission Spokeswoman, said, \"This is extremely important. It is very important that we will now have a cross-party unity government in Greece as an expression of a consensus which we have called for, for a long time, necessary to implement the very difficult, but necessary measures that Greece needs to undertake to put the country on a sustainable path and address the sovereign debt crisis, indeed supported by the European Union and the IMF.\"