ATHENS - Greece put a senior judge in charge of an emergency government on Wednesday to lead it to new elections on June 17 and bankers sought to calm public fears after the president said political chaos risked causing panic and a run on deposits. European leaders who once denied vociferously that they were fretting over Greece leaving their currency union have given up pretence. Asked if he was concerned about a Greek exit, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said simply: "No comment". Greeks have been withdrawing hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) from banks in recent days as the prospect of the country being forced out of the European Union's common currency zone seems ever more real - although there has so far been no sign of a run on bank branches in Athens. Political leaders failed to form a government following an inconclusive parliamentary election on May 6, leaving the state with its coffers almost empty and no elected cabinet in place to satisfy lenders it deserves the money needed to stay afloat. President Karolos Papoulias, whose powers as head of state are limited, named supreme administrative court head Panagiotis Pikrammenos as caretaker prime minister. He will have no power to take political decisions, only to carry Greece into the vote. The parliament that was elected on May 6 will convene on Thursday and be immediately dissolved, a presidency source said. The interim leader is little known outside legal circles. State television said he was born in 1945 in Patras, western Greece and studied law in Athens and Paris. A court source said he would name a cabinet that would be as small as possible. "Thank you for your trust, and I believe that I am worthy of this mission," Pikrammenos said at a meeting with the president. "This is purely a caretaker government. However, it escapes no one that our country is going through difficult times." He repeated a joke he said he had read in the press, that his own name, which translates to "embittered" in English, made him suited to be the last prime minister of a political era.
