SYRIZA says new Parliament head agreed to resolve seating debacle

Re-elected Parliament President Konstantinos Tasoulas has agreed to change the seating arrangements in the House after SYRIZA protested about the decision to place the lawmakers of the far-right Spartans between those of the leftist main opposition. 

“After the communication he had last night and this morning with Olga Gerovasili and the new president of SYRIZA’s parliamentary group, the Parliament president Konstantinos Tasoulas pledged that he will proceed with every action, to solve the issue that has been created,” the party’s parliamentary sources said on Tuesday.

In a letter to Tasoulas on Monday, the president of SYRIZA’s parliamentary group, Sokratis Famellos, asked him to remove the Spartans from their current seats.

“We consider it unacceptable and unthinkable that it was decided to divide the seats of the main opposition so that there is no continuity in the seating of the SYRIZA deputies, which is unprecedented in parliamentary history,” Famellos wrote in the letter.  

“We also consider it unacceptable that the Spartans were chosen to sit in the seats at the left in the plenary hall, something inconsistent with the history of the Parliament and of parliaments in general, but also with the parliamentary rules,” he added.

Traditionally, the parties considered to be far-right are placed to the right of the plenary hall, next to New Democracy. The Spartans’ deputies, however, were seated in the back seats and to the left, where leftist MeRA25 MPs were placed in the previous parliamentary period. MeRA25 did not elect any deputies in the June 25 election.