Former spokesman of the Basque Nationalist Party PNV in the Spanish parliament Josu Erkoreka will be the right-hand man of the new Basque Premier Iñigo Urkullu, Urkullu himself announced on Friday together with the seven other names of the regional ministers.

Erkoreka, who will be the Public Administration and Justice minister, will also be the spokesman for new Basque Government.

Arantza Tapia, who was also a MP in the Spanish parliament, will be in charge of the Ministry of Economic Development and Competitiveness. Juan Maria Aburto, former spokesman of the Bizkaia regional county, will be in charge of the Ministry of Employment and Social Policies.

Ricardo Gatzaetxebarria, MP in the Basque chamber, will be the Treasury minister: Cristina Uriarte will be in charge of Education, Language Policy and Culture; Estefania Beltran de Heredia will be the Public Safety minister; Jon Darpon will be the Health minister; and Ana Isabel Oregi will be the Environment minister.

Two out of the eight ministers, Ana Isabel Oregi and Cristina Uriarte, are independent and do not belong to the Basque Nationalist Party. None of the eight ministers was a member of the party's Euskaldi Buru Batzar board.

As part of a new set of austerity measures, the new government will have less ministers that the previous one, just eight compared to Patxi Lopez's government that had ten. For the same reason, there won't be a deputy lehendakari.