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Ahead of the European Parliament election on May 26, main opposition New Democracy maintains a 6.5 lead over ruling SYRIZA, according to a poll by MRB published in Ta Nea newspaper on Saturday.

Thirty percent of those polled backed the conservatives, against 23.5 percent for SYRIZA.

Political tensions are expected to gradually peak over the next two weeks in the countdown to local authority and European Parliament elections as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seeks to wring maximum gain from the relief measures he heralded last week and conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis stresses the government's shortfalls.

SYRIZA keeps looking for ways to transfer its political dispute with New Democracy abroad. One wonders whether the prime minister and his aides have so little faith in their own positions that they seek confirmation elsewhere, or whether the long-term distortion of reality has evolved from a political trick into a disease, where the afflicted see only what they want to see.

Main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on Greeks to rally with New Democracy in May's European elections, saying the result of the polls will signal ruling SYRIZA's gradual exit from the government.

Sofia Zacharaki will replace MEP Maria Spyraki as New Democracy spokesperson, Greece's conservative party has said.
Zacharaki had until now served as deputy spokesperson for ND.
The party said Spyraki will run as a candidate in the upcoming European Parliament elections.

Greek lawmakers took a step closer to changing the way the country's president is elected after including the relevant article (32) of the Constitution among those that will be revised by the next Parliament after the national election.

Greek lawmakers are to debate and vote on a constitutional review on Thursday, where interest will be focused on an amendment that would delink the failure to elect the country's president with an enhanced majority to the dissolution of Parliament.
The debate at the plenary session will begin at 10 a.m. and will be completed tonight with a roll-call vote.

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis commenced an effort to build closer ties with Russian leaders in talks with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin in Moscow.

The leader of the main conservative opposition New Democracy Kyriakos Mitsotakis is to pay a two-day visit to Moscow next week, ND has announced.
During his visit on Wednesday and Thursday he is to meet with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other senior members of the government.

What Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos dared to say is the self-evident, at least for democratic countries. He said that in the unlikely and unfortunate event that New Democracy comes to power after the next general election, SYRIZA will support it in efforts to renegotiate the currently very high primary surplus targets agreed to with creditors.