Greece

President Katerina Sakellaropoulou issued the Presidential Decree dissolving parliament and officially calling for elections on June 25 on Monday. According to the decree, the resulting parliament will convene on Monday, July 3.

The decree is also signed by caretaker prime minister Ioannis Sarmas and members of the caretaker ministerial cabinet.

Greece's caretaker prime pinister, Ioannis Sarmas, sent a letter to Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, extending his congratulations on his re-election as the president of Turkey and expressing wishes for peace and prosperity for the Turkish people.

Erdogan extended his rule into a third decade by defeating Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the country's runoff election Sunday.

The upcoming winter that will be without electricity and natural gas subsidies is one of the big concerns that the new energy minister and the whole government that will emerge from the June 25 election will need to manage.

Nikos Androulakis, the leader of PASOK, which came third in the May 21 elections, addressed the party's central political committee and new parliamentary group on Sunday. The meeting was attended by candidates and PASOK officials from all parts of Greece.

A leadership change in the main opposition party, left-wing SYRIZA, will have to wait until the June 25 election, if at all.

Three individuals have been apprehended by the police in eastern Thessaloniki, in northern Greece, on charges of causing damage to a city bus.

Higher temperatures are coming soon in Greece, and with them the dreaded wildfire alerts. And, this year, the danger could be heightened because of low rain and snow coverage during the winter months.

Despite its resounding victory in the May 21 election, the ruling New Democracy party does not take winning an outright majority in Parliament after the June 25 election for granted, despite a favorable electoral law that offers a significant seat bonus to the winner.

We met at the Maximos Mansion in Athens just a few hours after Kyriakos Mitsotakis handed over to the interim prime minister who will be taking Greece to a second general election on June 25.

The Athens-Epidaurus Festival (aefestival.gr) is inaugurating its program at the cool Pireos 260 venue with a feast of shows for the week starting on June 7. On Stage D, avant-garde Russian theater and film director Kirill Serebrennikov is making his Greek debut with a performance expressing his opposition to Moscow and its invasion of Ukraine.