Karolos Papoulias

Greece won its second medal at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich, Switzerland, on Sunday with Louis Tsatoumas coming second in the long jump.

Briton Greg Rutherford won the event with a leap of 8.29 meters. Tsatoumas took silver with 8.15 meters, just one centimeter ahead of France's Kafetien Gomis, who claimed bronze.

Katerina Stefanidi won a silver medal for Greece in the women’s pole vault at the European Athletics Championship in Zurich on Thursday night.

Anzhelika Sidorova of Russia won the competition in dramatic style as she cleared 4.65 meters on her third and final attempt to move above Stefanidi, who had finished her competition with a best of 4.60 but was ahead on countback.

By Angelos Stangos

Coalition leaders sought on Thursday to defuse tension that has built up between New Democracy and PASOK as a result of the assessment of public servants’ performance, with the Administrative Reform Ministry indicating that it is willing to make compromises over the evaluation scheme.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras marked Thursday’s 40th anniversary of the end of the military dictatorship by saying that democracy has “deep roots” in Greece but the government’s spokeswoman found herself in disagreement with President Karolos Papoulias, who argued that democracy has suffered during the country’s economic crisis.

The crisis caused the democratic process to "retreat" and that is probably the most dramatic side effect of the financial crisis noted Greek President Karolos Papoulias in a statement marking the restoration of democracy in Greece following the fall of the military dictatorship 40 years ago.

Poet Kiki Dimoula and academic Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweile yesterdayr received the Order of the Phoenix Grand Crosses from President Karolos Papoulias.

The order is the top award that Greece issues to figures who have excelled in the arts, industry and public administration.

A total of 24 people were awarded by Papoulias.

Both Greece’s conservative-led government and the leftist opposition claimed victory on Thursday after the Parliament’s summer session rejected proposals for a debate regarding a possible referendum on plans to sell part of Public Power Corporation (PPC), the nation’s biggest power producer, to a private competitor in 2015.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will stop off in Greece on his way to South America next week, the government said on Friday, the second high-level visit to the southern European country in a month.

Yannis Stournaras was sworn in as the new governor of the Bank of Greece on Friday in the presence of President Karolos Papoulias (center) and Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis (left).