New Democracy urges government to call early elections after bailout ends

Referring to the government’s insistence that Greece will achieve a clean exit from the bailout in the summer, New Democracy Spokesperson Maria Spyraki said on Sunday that it must seek a clear mandate and call for early elections after August as it has "run out of political fuel."

She said the government’s talk of a clean exit “entails the slashing of pensions on January1, 2019 and the lowering of the tax threshold on January 1, 2020.”

Earlier, Government Spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told the Athens News Agency that speculation Greece will have to seek a precautionary credit line and implement further austerity measures after the program ends in August “has been refuted.”

He added that Greece’s fiscal performance has shown that the government will be able to ease austerity without creating problems to midterm targets.

“I think this position is shared by most of our European creditors,” he said.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said last week that Greece will undergo “enhance surveillance” after the program ends, puncturing a hole in the government’s narrative of a clean exit.