George Stathakis, an election candidate for Syriza and one its two leading economic advisers, has sought to reassure the country’s shipping community that a government formed by his party will pose no threat to them.

“There will be no surprises,” he told a shipping forum organised by the Naftemporiki newspaper, after Theodore Veniamis, the president of the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS), urged the country’s next government to uphold the legal framework under which Greek companies operate.

If this demand is met, Veniamis said, Greek shipping will be willing to contribute more to the country’s cash-strapped economy.

The imminent prospect of anti-austerity Syriza forming Greece’s next government – the country’s but also Europe's first ever leftist one – has raised some concerns within the country’s powerful shipping industry, with some shipowners warning that if Syriza implements its plans to crackdown on the country’s oligarchs and demands an increase in their contribution to the country’s economy, then they may opt to leave Greece.

Stathakis, an economics professor, said if changes are made to this legal framework, it will be done in consultation with them, and he pledged his party’s commitment to stand by the side of shipowners, ‘as it always has’,  in the challenges they face.