ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's finance minister has said a failure by parliament to elect a president by the end of the month will lead to lower growth next year.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has brought forward the presidential election by two months in a bid to end political uncertainty as Greece recovers from a six-year economic crisis. But if the government's candidate does not win, an early parliamentary election will be called.
Samaras last week warned that Greece risked a "catastrophe" that would return it to the peak of its debt crisis if a president was not elected and radical leftists came to power. The far-left Syriza party, which leads in opinion polls, has accused the government of "fearmongering".
Greece emerged this year from a crippling recession induced by austerity cuts under its unpopular EU/IMF bailout, and the 182-billion-euro economy is expected to expand by 0.6 percent this year and by 2.9 percent in 2015.
"The scenario of not electing a president in December ... will be accompanied with a lower growth rate in 2015 compared with the case of electing a president," Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis told Monday's financial daily Naftemporiki.
He also said Greece would start running into trouble on its funding needs if a snap election failed to produce a government that could wrap up a pending bailout review, due to unlock 7 billion euros from the EU and IMF.
"If there is no government to conclude negotiations, there will be an important funding gap," he said. "This deficit is manageable until February, and not easily afterwards, since from March onwards our needs will increase."
(Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Kevin Liffey)