Evangelos Venizelos

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras addresses a pre-election event held by New Democracy's candidate for Attica governor, Giorgos Koumoutsakos, in central Athens on Wednesday night.

A demonstrator takes part in a protest by Greek schoolteachers outside the Greek Parliament in central Athens, on Wednesday. About a thousand people took part in the peaceful protest, demanding that the Greek government revokes its decision to cut thousands of public sector jobs under the financially troubled country's bailout commitments.

PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos (photo) on Tuesday laughed off a Financial Times report that European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso had a hand in the creation of a three-party interim government led by ex-central banker Lucas Papademos in late 2012.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso spoke to Antonis Samaras and Evangelos Venizelos in private in November 2011 and encouraged them to block George Papandreou’s proposal for a referendum on Greece’s euro membership, a Financial Times report claimed on Monday.

With just a week to go before local authority elections and two weeks before elections for the European Parliament, party leaders ratcheted up their campaigning over the weekend as new opinion polls put New Democracy, which leads the ruling coalition, and the left-wing opposition SYRIZA neck and neck.

There are some people within PASOK who are hoping that the party performs poorly in this month’s double elections so that they can challenge for the leadership, party president Evangelos Venizelos claimed on Friday.

PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos is due to address his party’s MPs on Friday in a bid to boost their morale a day after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras sought to drive his lawmakers on to the local and European Parliament elections later this month.

By Costas Iordanidis

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin and his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos discussed Thursday in Thessaloniki energy cooperation.

BELGRADE / ATHENS – An EU-Western Balkans ministerial conference is taking place in Thessaloniki on Thurdsay, and Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic is attending.