Novartis probes, justice appointments tax government

As investigations get under way into claims by a top prosecutor that a government official sought to influence a probe into an alleged bribery scandal involving the Swiss drugs firm Novartis, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faces another headache over reports that President Prokopis Pavlopoulos plans not to approve his cabinet's nomination of a new Supreme Court leadership.
According to sources, Pavlopoulos made it clear to Tsipras, when the latter visited him last Monday to request the dissolution of Parliament to make way for a snap election, that he cannot sign a decree approving the Supreme Court appointments before the end of the month as the terms of the court's president and main prosecutor will not have expired by then; nor can he sign the decree in the first week of July, Pavlopoulos reportedly said, as snap polls will be imminent, on July 7.
As a result,...