Greek president Karolos Papoulias has proposed a government of prominent non-politicians to steer the country and avert new elections as doubts mount that Greece can avoid an exit from the euro area.
Mr Papoulias will call a meeting of all leaders of parties represented in parliament except for an ultra-nationalist party for tomorrow to discuss the proposal, said Evangelos Venizelos, the leader of Pasok, the third-biggest party.
Mr Venizelos spoke after meeting with Mr Papoulias and the leaders of two other parties.
"Pasok is taking a responsible stance," Mr Venizelos said in comments televised live on state-run NET TV. "We support a government of prominent figures as a necessary solution."
The new plan to install a technocratic administration threatens to extend the political gridlock that has left the country without a government for more than a week since the inconclusive May 6th elections.
Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis, who attended today's meeting, said he was opposed to the plan and will attend tomorrow to press for his unity government proposal, which has already been rejected by the second-biggest party, Syriza.
Syriza, now Greece's biggest anti-bailout party, defied overtures to join the government yesterday, with leader Alexis Tsipras boycotting today's meeting. Mr Tsipras will attend the meeting tomorrow, NET reported.
The extreme nationalist Golden Dawn party has not been invited.
Mr Papoulias spent yesterday trying to coax the country's three biggest parties into a coalition. If his efforts fail, new elections will need to be called.
Greece's political impasse has raised the possibility another vote will have to be held as early as next month, with polls showing that could boost the anti-bailout Syriza to the top spot.
The standoff has reignited concern the country will renege on pledges to cut spending as required by the terms of its two bailouts negotiated since May 2010, and, ultimately, leave the euro area.
Earlier this afternoon, Mr Tsipras said Europe must re-examine its policy of austerity and that his party wants Greece to stay in the euro.
"We ask that our country remain in the euro without the catastrophic policy of austerity and we have the solidarity of Europe," Mr Tsipras said in an interview broadcast on state-run Athens News Agency's website. "I can't guarantee that the euro area itself and the euro will be united and exist."
Mr Tsipras said the crisis is European, not just Greek, and said that it needed to be acknowledged that austerity policies on a European basis had failed.
The anti-bailout vote was divided among small parties but has now rallied behind Mr Tsipras, who emerged as an overnight sensation. Polls show he would now place first if the vote is repeated, a prize that comes with a bonus of 50 extra seats in the 300-seat parliament.
He has consistently refused to join a coalition government with the establishment conservative and socialist parties that ruled Greece for decades but were punished by voters last week for their role in agreeing the EU rescue, which requires deep cuts in wages and pensions.
Mr Tsipras wants the bailout deal torn up. European leaders say that would require them to cut off funding, allow Greece to go bankrupt and eject it from the European single currency.
After meeting Mr Papoulias and the conservative and socialist leaders yesterday, Mr Tsipras said of their coalition offer: "They are not asking for agreement, they are asking us to be their partners in crime and we will not be their accomplices."
Socialist leader Mr Venizelos said he was nonetheless holding on to hopes that a deal could still be salvaged, but warned time was running out. "Despite the impasse at the meeting we had with the president, I hold on to some limited optimism that a government can be formed," said Mr Venizelos, whose Pasok party finished a humiliating third in the election, a shadow of its former self. "The moment of truth has come. We either form a government or we go to elections."
Mr Kouvelis, who attended today's talks, commands enough seats to provide the conservatives and socialists with a majority, but has repeatedly said he would not join a coalition without Mr Tsipras.
All seven political parties that won seats in last week's election were given audiences with the president yesterday, demonstrating the radical transformation that has taken place in just a week after generations of stable two-party rule.
Among parties Mr Papoulias was obliged to meet was the far right Golden Dawn, in parliament for the first time. Many Greeks watched in shock as the president, a revered 82-year-old veteran of the second World War anti-Nazi resistance, received the leader of a group whose members give Nazi-style salutes.
Mr Papoulias, shown on TV smiling with other leaders, was stony faced when seated opposite Golden Dawn's Nikalaos Mihaloliakos. Journalists at the mansion sat on the ground in protest when Mr Mihaloliakos entered and refused to ask questions when he left.
Supporters of the two establishment parties will be hoping that if a new election is held, Greeks will be frightened of the prospect of leaving the euro and return to the fold.
Polls show an overwhelming majority of Greeks reject the bailout but want to keep the euro - a position regarded in Brussels as untenable. As many as 78.1 per cent want the new government to do whatever it takes to keep their country in the currency, a poll by Kappa Research for To Vima daily showed.
But Europe is running out of patience. European officials who once refused to discuss the possibility of Greek exit from the euro now talk about it openly as a real, if painful, possibility.
The European Commission said today it hopes Greece will remain part of the euro zone but Athens must respect its obligations.
“We don't want Greece to leave the euro, quite the contrary - we are doing our utmost to support Greece," European Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen told a news briefing in Brussels today.
"The commission position remains completely unchanged: we want Greece to be able to stay in the euro. This is the best thing for Greece, for the Greek people and for Europe as a whole."
She declined to speculate what might happen if Greece were unable to form a government.