Olympic concerns mean no torch carried for polls

Country profile - Greece: Greece, like several other veteran EU members, is apathetic about the EU Parliamentary elections. The first reason for this lack of interest is that Greeks went to the polls in a hotly contested general election in March. The second is that Greeks are fixated on preparations for the August Olympics in Athens and domestic economic woes.

Work on construction projects for the Olympics has gone so slowly that both the International Olympics Committee and sports commentators expressed serious concern that the venues and other infrastructure would not be ready in time.

Last week Greek volunteers, fearing the country's honour would be besmirched by an Olympic failure, began to clear up rubbish and plant trees and shrubs on sites where building work had finished.

The country's deficit has risen above the EU's 3 per cent threshold, the estimated cost of the Olympics has more than doubled, and the ministry of finance has contracted foreign loans for €5.575 billion.

Furthermore, although the Olympics will partly pay for itself with tourism revenues, it is predicted that the flood of tourists into Athens during the games will drop steeply afterwards due to the high cost of visiting Greece.

Although a high 66 per cent of Greeks are expected to vote on June 13th, 54 per cent said they are not interested in the poll.

The majority are ignorant of the issues, refuse to recognise the importance of the popular level of decisions taken in Brussels, and regard the European Parliament as a costly debating society.

Fifty-seven per cent believe their vote "will not change anything". The political parties, weary from their exertions in the hard-fought winter contest, are waging lack-lustre campaigns. Few posters have gone up.

While some candidates have indulged in desultory discussions on television, it is unlikely that the final televised party political debate on June 8th will galvanise electors.

The two main parties, New Democracy and the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), are said to have put off serious confrontation until later.

The 24 candidates put forward by each of the main parties have never served in the European Parliament.

While the Prime Minister, Mr Karamanlis, is seeking to tempt voters by resurrecting conservative party stalwarts for his list, the leader of the main opposition Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), Mr George Papandreou, has topped his list with Ms Mary Matzouka, a youth leader and head of the trade union at the flourishing Cosmote mobile phone company.

She is seen as a representative of the new PASOK, which Mr Papandreou has been trying to forge out of a party which was in office for all but three of the past 23 years.

He has sidelined or sacked its entrenched bosses, eschewed its socialist ideology, and is bringing in new blood with the aim of capturing the centre ground of the political spectrum in the next general election. But neither Papandreou's reforms nor his choices have gone down well with the media, which usually support PASOK or many of its traditional voters.

Consequently, PASOK may not endorse Mr Papandreou's remake by casting their ballots for his unknown European Parliamentary candidates.

Mr Karamanlis, still enjoying a political honeymoon, has considerable personal popularity and this has been reflected in projected election results.

Polls show that his New Democracy Party would receive about 42 per cent of the vote, securing up to 11 seats. PASOK would get 34 per cent, winning eight or nine seats.

The anti-Europe Communists would gain 7.9 per cent, and the Left Coalition 3.5 per cent, sharing the remaining five or six seats, although the extreme right Laos (People's) party might take one.