Greek President calls talks in final bid to avert new polls

GREECE: Greece’s president will meet political party chiefs Sunday in a final attempt to forge an emergency coalition, and avoid fresh polls, amid heightened fears of a eurozone exit following inconclusive elections.

President Carolos Papoulias “will summon party leaders in a bid to form a government that will enjoy the backing of the parliamentary body that emerged from general elections on May 6,” his office said in a statement Saturday.

The political impasse must be overcome by Thursday, when parliament convenes, or new elections will have to be called in June.

The leaders of the conservative, radical left and socialist parties, which took the top three places in last weekend’s polls have all failed to build a coalition.

Papoulias will meet them at 0900 GMT Sunday, hoping to convince them that it is in the national interests to cooperate within a unity government.

The president will later meet separately with heads of smaller parties elected to parliament, including the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, his office said.

Papoulias on Saturday said there were “grains of optimism” that a coalition could be formed between the conservatives, the socialists and a small pro-European leftist party, according to his office.

“Things are rather difficult,” he told socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, noting that Greece needs to be represented at a eurozone finance ministers’ meeting on Monday, a NATO meeting on Thursday and an EU summit on Friday.

Venizelos told Papoulias that the three parties -- New Democracy, Pasok and Democratic Left, which have a total of 168 deputies in the 300-seat parliament -- could form a temporary two-year government to keep Greece in the eurozone.

The goal would also be to “drastically” improve a multi-billion euro loan deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, he added.

But the Democratic Left has previously said it would not join a government made up of only Pasok and New Democracy and which did not include Syriza, the radical leftist party that opposes the 240-billion-euro (311 billion dollar) EU-IMF bailout for Greece. Syriza refused to budge on Saturday.

“This is an attempt to continue the politics of the bailout,” Syriza said.

AFP