Ex-eu commissioner dimas fails again in third round of elections

SYRIZA leads in new election polls – euro again in jeopardy

Today at noon, former EU environment commissioner stavros dimas, nominated by prime minister antonis samaras as a candidate for the presidency, failed for the third time to achieve the required majority of 180 votes in the athens parliament. Instead, he came out – as he did in the last vote on 23. December – only 168. Now the parliament will be dissolved and there will be new elections on 25 january. January to new elections.

The governing coalition, in which the liberal-conservative nea dimokratia cooperates with the social-democratic PASOK, jointly holds 155 seats. Voting with her were members of the dimokratiki aristera ("democratic left"), which was part of the governing coalition until 2013, two ex-members of the nationalist chrysi avgi ("golden dawn") who separated from their party and other independent deputies. Previously, samaras had offered such deputies government posts if they chose dimas.

Stavros dimas. Photo: greenweek. License: CC BY 2.0.

Opposing dimas were the EU-critical nea dimokratia breakaway anexartiti ellines ("independent greeks"), the communist KKE, the rest of chrysi avgi and the opposition party SYRIZA, the largest with 71 deputies. She wants to reverse the deficit reduction measures imposed by the troika of the european central bank (ECB), the international monetary fund (IMF) and the EU commission and suspend interest and principal payments.

SYRIZA is currently leading the polls for new elections: it could get more than 30 percent of the vote and then, as the winner of the election, would receive an additional 50 mandates. The communists are a possible coalition partner. If this is enough to get a majority in parliament, the euro will probably come under renewed prere and the ECB could be prompted to buy government bonds on a large scale.

Whether or not this happens will be decided by the ECB’s fifteen-member executive board, on which representatives of the 19 euro countries (after the accession of lithuania on january 1) rotate. January), representatives of the 19 euro countries will rotate on the board, which is why ECB chief mario draghi can wait for majority conditions that are favorable to him.

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