Evangelos Venizelos

PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos has labelled “unconstitutional” a request by SYRIZA chief Alexis Tsipras for early general elections.

Venizelos held a news conference shortly after Tsipras met with President Karolos Papoulias, where he suggested that the government lacked the legitimacy to continue. Tsipras called for national elections “as soon as possible.”

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is due to meet Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos on Thursday to discuss Sunday’s election results.

The two men are due to meet at 6 p.m. after New Democracy came second in the European Parliament vote. The PASOK-led Elia alliance came fourth.

With almost all the votes counted in the European Parliament elections, SYRIZA has a 3.8 percentage point lead over New Democracy but Prime Minister Antonis Samaras insists this is not enough to trigger early general elections.

PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos said on Thursday that the results of the European Parliament elections on Sunday would have to be balanced against the outcome of the local polls that take place on the same day.

The right-wing, anti-bailout Independent Greeks party has attacked socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos following his angry reaction Wednesday to a demonstration by a small group of bond-holders during a European election campaign speech in Athens.

People wait at a bus stop beneath a campaign poster for New Democracy in central Athens on Wednesday.

With just a few days left before the crucial double elections on Sunday, party leaders intensified their campaigning on Wednesday with their position on the threat posed by neofacist Golden Dawn a key focus of much of the rhetoric.

PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos claimed late on Sunday that SYRIZA’s strategy of trying to turn local and European Parliament elections into a referendum on the government failed on Sunday.

BELGRADE - Greek Ambassador to Serbia Constantine Economides has said that a rescue team from Greece will arrive in Serbia on Monday to provide assistance in areas hit by floods.

"Special 8 man rescue team from Thessaloniki arriving tomorrow to help Serbian friends in flooded areas," he posted via twitter.com.

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.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the center-right candidate for European Commission president and former Eurogroup chairman declared on Friday that SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, his leftist rival for the top EC post, would not make a good Greek Prime Minister as he would not cooperate effectively with the commission.