LONDON (Reuters) – There is an irony in Lucas Papademos taking over as Greek prime minister to help his country survive in the euro zone: He was one of those who eased Greece into the single currency in the first place.

As head of Greece’s central bank from 1994-2002, the cautious, quietly spoken technocrat fought rocketing inflation and sought to impose monetary discipline on a country that frankly has never had any.

Along the way, he gathered enough kudos among Europe’s leaders and with financial markets to find himself — to his own surprise — appointed as vice president of the European Central Bank, one of the highest international posts ever held by a Greek.

There is little doubt that background, along with a stint at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, qualifies him more than perhaps any one else to understand both the economic and international implications of Greece’ debt debacle.

He is also cut from that modernist Greek cloth that eschews the kind of nationalistic chest-beating and conspiracy-driven machismo that has so often hurt the country’s relations with others.

But the question is whether a somewhat introverted academic like Papademos can handle the rough and tumble of Greek politics, which includes violent street clashes and harsh personal enmities in parliament.

He is not unfamiliar with the syndrome but may be uncomfortable with it. As central bank governor he was widely condemned in the late 1990s for suggesting — rightly as it turns out — that Greece’s stock market was a dangerous bubble.