Euclid Tsakalotos

Terence Quick, the former deputy minister of state with Independent Greeks during the nationalist party's coalition with ruling SYRIZA will be running in next month's snap elections with the incumbent leftists.

According to an announcement from SYRIZA, the ex-television journalist will be running for a seat in Parliament representing Athens' northern constituency.

The next government in Greece will be the one to offer the necessary explanations to the Eurogroup about the outgoing administration's handouts, which appear to be leading the country toward a fiscal derailment and target shortfalls.

Eurozone finance ministers are hoping their outgoing Greek counterpart, Euclid Tsakalotos, will not skip this Thursday's Eurogroup meeting - like he did last month - so that they get the chance to personally express their objections to the Greek government's policies, as explained in last week's European Commission report.

Greece is on its way to fully lifting remaining restrictions on capital transfers this year, the governor of the country's central bank said on Tuesday.

An avalalanche of over a dozen new taxes and tax hikes imposed during SYRIZA's four-and-a-half years in power is widely considered the main reason for the disastrous result of the 26 May European Parliament election.

The government's long string of tax hikes was in large measure due to its inability to meet fiscal targets agreed to with creditors.

The policies of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister at the time, Yanis Varoufakis, resulted in the imposition of capital controls in the summer of 2015. Greece found itself on the brink of default.

Greece on Friday scrapped plans to force people to pay more tax on their incomes from next year, less than a month before a parliamentary election.

By George Gilson

The European Commission rang a resounding alarm bell in its quarterly enhanced fiscal surveillance report on the Greek economy that was released yesterday.

Despite the use of tempered language so as not to appear to intervene in Greece's general election campaign, the Commission's concerns about a prospective fiscal derailment are perfectly clear.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday urged his SYRIZA party to regroup and heed the message of voters ahead of snap national elections he called after a resounding defeat from opposition conservatives in European Parliament elections.