AFP

ATHENS GREECE will go to the polls for the second time in just six weeks on June 17, the Athens News Agency said on Wednesday, as fears grew of more instability over the troubled country’s future in the eurozone.

State-controlled ANA said Council of State president Panagiotis Pikrammenos, the head of Greece’s top administrative court, will be caretaker prime minister and organise the ballot after a May 6 poll failed to produce a government ready to implement in full a tough EU-IMF bailout accord.

F r e n c h - e d u c a t e d Pikramenos, 67, a former prime ministerial advisor, said that he would create a team of 12-13, including some outgoing ministers along with other judges.

Greece and the world’s financial markets had been anxiously awaiting the date for new polls amid growing fears the cash-strapped nation could be forced out of the 17-member eurozone.

The tough austerity measures included in the 240-billion euro ($300 billion) EUIMF deal saw voters desert the main Pasok and New Democracy parties which had supported the bailout in a technocratic government formed last November.

While fixing an election date at least removes one uncertainty, a host of problems remain, both for Greece and the wider eurozone.

There is no guarantee that the new vote will produce a viable government and Syriza, which has threatened to tear up EU-IMF deal, is tipped to win after surging into second place in the May 6 election.

News that about 700 million euros ($890 million) had been withdrawn from Greek banks on Monday stoked the tensions, with investors fearful that a Greek euro exit would be chaotic for everyone.

Christian Schulz of Berenberg Bank said the withdrawals suggested that Greeks were “getting increasingly worried about the country’s future in the euro”.

On their own they “do not indicate panic quite yet.

However, this could change soon, so that the central bank would have to step in to save the banks.” Commerzbank analysts said the risk of a “Grexit” — an uncontrolled Greek default and eurozone exit — had increased with the holding fresh polls.

Press reaction was subdued, reflecting the feeling that while most Greeks want to stay in the eurozone, they cannot live with more spending cuts which have already triggered strikes and sometimes violent demonstrations.

The centre-left daily Ethnos wrote that Greece was heading for “elections in a minefield.

The result will determine the country’s future in the eurozone.” The election “will test the patience of Greece’s partners on whether the country will stay in the eurozone,” financial daily Naftemoporiki said.