Political parties in Greece are to hold a last round of emergency talks aimed at forming a coalition government in wake of last week's indecisive elections in which no single party secured the required majority and their subsequent failure to form a unity government even after intense negotiations, media reports citing officials said late on Monday.
In the wake of international concerns over the calls made by leftist parties to roll back on austerity deals reached earlier with Greece's international lenders as well as the possibility of Greece exiting the eurozone, President Karolos Papoulias has invited the major political parties for final talks aimed at forming a technocratic government made up of "distinguished and political figures."
However, most political parties remain skeptical about a unity government emerging from the planned talks as their previous attempts had ended in failure over differences on the austerity issue. On Monday, talks held between the center-right New Democracy, the socialist Pasok as well as the moderate Democratic Left parties ended in deadlock just after they began at the presidential palace.
Further, Alexis Tsipras, leader of the far-left Syriza party, said on Monday that his party would not participate in coalition negotiations with other Greek political parties that back earlier deals reached with the troika of international creditors -- the European Union, European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- in exchange for bailout loans. Notably, latest opinion polls suggest that anti-bailout parties are expected to win in fresh elections.
All the four parties, including the Syriza, are expected to take part in Tuesday's talks mediated by President Papoulias. Also, local media reports suggest that the Greek Independent Party will also participate in the talks, implying that only two parties that secured seats in the recent elections, namely the Communists (KKE) and far-right Golden Dawn, will be absent.
Nevertheless, the success of the planned talks seems doubtful as Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis had stated earlier that his party wanted the Syriza to be part of the new administration that emerged from the talks. But Kouvelis also expressed willingness to join a broad-based government that would retain Greece's eurozone membership but disengage from the terms and conditions of the earlier agreed bailout packages with the troika of creditors.
The development follows splintered results from the May 6 election in which no single party managed to secure a clear majority to form a government on their own. Earlier, separate attempts by the New Democracy, Syriza and Pasok to form a coalition government had ended in failure. Wile the New Democracy emerged with the most number of seats from the election, the Syriza and Pasok came in second and third.
If the forthcoming negotiations also fail, fresh elections are expected to be announced later this week. Such a development would lead to weeks of uncertainty in the eurozone over Greece's continued membership in the single currency zone.
European leaders had earlier expressed concerns over the call made by Tsipras to the country's leading political parties to renounce their support for the austerity program. Eurozone nations have already warned that Greece would get further disbursements of the bailout loan only if it manages to put a stable government in place and continues to implement austerity programs agreed under the bailout deal.
Athens had agreed in March to implement further austerity programs demanded in exchange for a joint 130 billion euro bailout from the EU, the ECB and the IMF. In addition, Greece had earlier availed a joint EU-IMF 110-billion-euro rescue loan in May 2010, of which several tranches have been handed out to Athens.
In return for these two loans, Greece had agreed to implement painful and hugely unpopular austerity measures, including reduction of government spending, slashing of public sector jobs, pension reforms, privatization of loss-making government-owned companies as well as increasing existing taxes and enforcing new ones.
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