Greece put a senior judge in charge of an emergency government today to lead it to new elections on June 17th as bankers sought to calm public fears after the president said political chaos risked causing panic and a run on deposits.
European leaders who once denied vociferously that they were fretting over Greece leaving their currency union have given up pretence. Asked if he was concerned about a Greek exit, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said simply: "No comment".
Greeks have been withdrawing hundreds of millions of euros from banks in recent days as the prospect of the country being forced out of the European Union's common currency zone seems ever more real - although there has so far been no sign of a run on bank branches in Athens.
Political leaders failed to form a government following an inconclusive parliamentary election on May 6th, leaving the state with its coffers almost empty and no elected cabinet in place to satisfy lenders it deserves the money needed to stay afloat.
President Karolos Papoulias, whose powers as head of state are limited, named supreme administrative court head Panagiotis Pikrammenos as caretaker prime minister. He will have no power to take political decisions, only to carry Greece into the vote.
The parliament that was elected on May 6th will convene today and immediately dissolved, a presidency source said. The interim leader is little known outside legal circles. State television said he was born in 1945 in Patras, western Greece and studied law in Athens and Paris.
A court source said he would name a cabinet that would be as small as possible.
"Thank you for your trust, and I believe that I am worthy of this mission," Mr Pikrammenos said at a meeting with the president. "This is purely a caretaker government. However, it escapes no one that our country is going through difficult times."
He repeated a joke he said he had read in the press, that his own name, which translates to "embittered" in English, made him suited to be the last prime minister of a political era.
A new poll confirmed what other surveys have shown: that radical leftists who reject a bailout agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund are poised for victory, and the two establishment parties that agreed the rescue are sinking further after an historic wipeout 10 days ago.
The leftists argue they can tear up the bailout and keep the euro, but European leaders say if Greece fails to meet promises to them, lenders will pull the plug on financing, driving Athens to bankruptcy and a swift exit from the EU single currency.
On Monday, according to an official account, the president told party chiefs that figures collated by the central bank headed by George Provopoulos showed savers withdrew at least €700 million from banks.
"Provopoulos told me there was no panic, but there was great fear that could develop into a panic," the president was quoted as saying in minutes of a meeting that failed to yield agreement on a cabinet, condemning Greeks to vote again next month.
A senior executive at a large Greek bank told Reuters: "There is no bank run, no queues or panic. The situation is better than I expected. The amount of deposit withdrawals the president mentioned referred to three days, not one."
"It is important that the Greek people now take a decision fully informed about the consequences," European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told a news conference.
"The ultimate resolve to stay in the euro area must come from Greece itself," Mr Barroso said. "We must tell the people that the programme for Greece is the least difficult of all the difficult alternatives."
Reuters