Greek government-debt crisis

Former premier Antonis Samaras has indicated that he will vote against a bill legalizing same-sex marriage when it comes before parliament, thus appearing to reject a proposal of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that government MPs who disagree with the measure abstain in the relevant parliamentary vote.

The leader of the left-wing opposition party SYRIZA, Stefanos Kasselakis, is scheduled to meet with the head of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos, on Saturday at 10 a.m.

A new opinion poll released ahead of European Parliament elections in June 2024, showed Greece's ruling conservatives maintaining a comfortable lead, with PASOK socialists climbing to the second place ahead of SYRIZA.

The former chief of the Greek Fire Service, Sotiris Terzoudis, confirmed on Thursday the testimonies of dozens of witnesses and a fire brigade expert that the former SYRIZA government knew, contrary to what it claimed, early on about the mounting death toll from the devastating wildfires in the seaside resort of Mati in eastern Attica in 2018, which claimed 104 lives.

Greece is planning an initial public offering (IPO) for Athens International Airport, the country's biggest, on the Athens Stock Exchange next month, two sources with knowledge of the plan said on Wednesday. A draft law completing the necessary institutional prerequisites for the listing cleared Parliament on Thursday.

The chairs of the Single Resolution Board (SRB) Dominique Laboureix and the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank (SSM) Claudia Buch are in Athens on a two-day visit on Thursday and Friday.

The heads of the two European institutions met on Thursday with Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras and top executives of the BoG.

Reducing the ratio of debt-to-gross domestic product at the fastest rate in Europe, achieving higher positions in the rating agencies' scales and further reducing the cost of servicing the country's borrowing, are the three main objectives set by the financial staff for the crucial issue of managing the Greek debt.

Three members of SYRIZA's political secretariat are urging the main opposition party to join the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) political group in the European Parliament, stating that the move is a crucial component of a broader strategy aimed at positioning it as the primary representative of the progressive political space in Greece.

New Left, the party created out of a split in the main opposition SYRIZA party, will hold an organizing meeting on January 12-13.

The meeting, to be held in Athens, will draw up a founding declaration and prepare a conference, to be held in late February, where the party's governing bodies will presumably be elected.

The government refuted claims that main opposition SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis was offered a ministerial seat in the ruling New Democracy party as "science fiction."