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People walk in front of European Parliament election posters of the Greek leftist SYRIZA party in Athens on Friday. Up to 350 million Europeans are eligible to vote in elections to the European Parliament taking place on May 22-25 in all 28 EU member states.

SYRIZA is half a percentage point ahead of New Democracy in terms of popularity ahead of the May 25 European elections, though the conservatives are 1.4 percent more likely to get reelected if general elections were being held now, a poll by GPO conducted on behalf of Mega television channel showed on Tuesday.

With just a week to go before local authority elections and two weeks before elections for the European Parliament, party leaders ratcheted up their campaigning over the weekend as new opinion polls put New Democracy, which leads the ruling coalition, and the left-wing opposition SYRIZA neck and neck.

A new opinion poll on voting intentions for European Parliament elections shows leftist opposition SYRIZA ahead of conservative coalition leaders New Democracy by 2 percent.

Conducted by Pulse for the weekly To Pontiki newspaper, the survey will be published on Friday.

By Alexis Papachelas

Thirteen days ahead of local elections and 20 days ahead of European Parliament elections, coalition partners New Democracy and PASOK are seeking to galvanize their party base to secure results that will dampen leftist opposition SYRIZA’s calls for a snap national vote.

SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras presented his party’s candidates for the European Parliament elections on May 25 and called on Greeks to “turn your rage into political action” to defeat the coalition government, with which the leftists were involved in another verbal battle.

Conservative New Democracy is to announce its list of candidates for next month's European elections on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who leads conservative ND, is due to present the list to the party's political committee at 2 p.m.

The government is to lift restrictions on MPs standing as candidates in the European Parliament elections though MPs of co-ruling New Democracy will have to quit their seats before running as MEPs, Interior Minister Yiannis Michelakis said on Monday.