Brussels, 28/08/2015 (Agence Europe) - Early elections will take place in Greece on 20 September, according to an official announcement on Friday in the form of the signing of an official decree by the Greek president, Prokopis Pavlopoulos.
On Thursday, Vassiliki Thanou, president of the Greek supreme court, was appointed caretaker prime minister and his government was signed in on Friday with Giorgos Chouliarakis as finance minister. The publication at the end of the week in the Efimerida Ton Syntakton newspaper of the first opinion poll since Alexis Tsipras' resignation shows the Syriza party losing a little ground. Syriza is credited with 23% of intended votes and New Democracy 19.5%. A previous poll carried out by the same body, ProRata, in July showed a wider gap, with 25.5% for Syriza and 15% for New Democracy. People's Unity, formed of former members of Syriza, could win 3.5% of the vote, just enough to get a seat in the Greek parliament, unlike the current coalition party in Tsipras coalition, the Greek Independents' party, which polls suggest would only win 2% of votes. Some 64% of respondents say that Tsipras' resignation was a bad idea, and 68% of those polled say that Greece should remain in the eurozone at any price, even if this means greater austerity.
The president of Eurogroup is quoted by Reuters as calling on the caretaker government to continue with the preparations for introducing an economic adjustment programme. (Elodie Lamer)