Greek government-debt crisis

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis should be held accountable for the alleged wiretapping of senior officials by the state intelligence service (EYP), leftist SYRIZA opposition chief Alexis Tsipras reiterated on Monday.

The speculation around partnerships between parties against the backdrop of ruling New Democracy's aim to form a single-party government will be the central theme of the long election period that will end on July 2. The first election in May will be conducted with the single proportional system.

Train services in Greece resumed Wednesday for the first time since a deadly rail disaster three weeks ago, and just a day after the embattled conservative prime minister announced an early election for May.

The February 28 head-on collision, the deadliest in the country's history, killed 57 people and left dozens injured, with nine still hospitalized.

We all have our concerns. The people of this country have their own huge concerns about what they will wake up to next. Then you read and hear that some people have their own great anxiety about whether the next Parliament will include a member from this or that political family.

The exposure of Greek banks to Credit Suisse is "almost zero," Greek central bank chief Yannis Stournaras told Reuters on Monday.

"They (the Greek banks) are not exposed to Credit Suisse's Additional Tier 1," Stournaras, who also sits on the ECB's 26-member Governing Council, said, adding that Greek banks are solid. [Reuters]

SYRIZA chief Alexis Tsipras is pondering the idea of taking the issue of safety from Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' pre-election agenda and using it to respond to the public outcry stemming from the Tempe rail crash.

A 19-year-old man arrested on suspicion of assaulting former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has been released on condition that he report to a police station once a month.

The man had appeared before an investigative magistrate for juveniles to testify on the charges.

Earlier, Varoufakis, who now heads the MeRA25 party, testified that he did not wish to support the charge.

The Greek banking system is clearly in a much better position now to absorb any turbulence from international markets than it was four years ago, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said on Thursday, commenting on global banking system tensions caused by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the crisis at Credit Suisse.

The 24-hour strike by Greece's largest private and public sector unions is also expected to close public services and state schools and disrupt city transport.
It is the latest in a series of protests following a head-on collision between a passenger and freight train in the central Greek region of Tempe. There were more than 350 people in the passenger train, mostly students.

A 19-year-old man was arrested on Tuesday in connection to the attack by a group of people on the leader of the MeRA25 party, Yanis Varoufakis, on Friday in a restaurant in the Exarchia district of central Athens.

Meanwhile, the 17-year-old who was arrested for recording the attack on his phone will appear before a prosecutor on Wednesday.