The provisional conservative leader of the main opposition New Democracy party, Vangelis Meimarakis, met with Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos at the Presidential Mansion at 10.30 a.m. on Thursday.

“Greece should come to a just and viable agreement so as to remain in the ‘hard’ core of Europe,” he said as he left the meeting. “We are talking about the future of the country at very difficult moments and I insist that there needs to be joint briefing,” he said, underlining that this is not the case. “We need to send a message to partners that they shouldn’t be so ‘harsh’ and understand that over 80% Greeks want to remain in the euro,” he said. “The government needs to say a huge ‘yes’ for the country to stay in the euro.”

“Let’s send the message that we are united constitutionally and institutionally by setting ‘red’ lines for the country to stay in the eurozone,” he said.

Meimarakis was unanimously declared the party leader on Wednesday and will be the main opposition party’s head at least until September. He takes over the party helm following the resignation of former leader Antonis Samaras who stepped down following the landslide victory of ‘no’ in the Greek referendum on Sunday as people rejected tough bailout measures that creditors wanted to impose.