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The social network Twitter is becoming more and more important in Greek society. A week after an inappropriate joke on Twitter led to the exclusion of triple jumper Voula Papachristou from the summer Olympics in London, the social network is once again in the headlines. This time the centre of attention is Nikos Nikolopoulos, former Deputy Minister for Labour and member of Parliament from the Peloponnesian region Achaia, whose stinging comments against Prime Minister Antonis Samaras caused his ejection from New Democracy's parliamentary group.

At the beginning of July, Nikolopoulos resigned from the post of Deputy Minister of Labour on the grounds that he disagrees with the abolition of collective agreements and their replacement with individual ones. According to circles from New Democracy, however, the reason for his resignation is different and associated with the clientelistic practices within the party, and his leaving had been requested by the Prime Minister and after that submitted by the Deputy Minister. Nikos Nikolopoulos himself has great power and authority in Achaia, and some even call him "the godfather" of the region.

Obviously greatly irritated by the reaction of Prime Minister Samaras, the deputy began publishing tweets which openly and aggressively criticize government policy. "Strategic impasse is obvious. The flag of renegotiation (of the Memorandum of financial stability - a/n) became a dream which we have forgotten" is one of the tweets that broke the camel's back. The second is: "What to expect - to become a colony of the Troika or a retribution."

These and other tweets became the reason for Nikolopoulos to be expelled from the parliamentary group of the New Democracy, and in the following days the ethics committee of the party will sit a session as well, and most likely it will exclude him from its ranks. "Twitter is only the occasion. The reason is that I am speaking openly that the government should address the members of the party to explain why it has withdrawn from politics against the memorandum and renegotiation", he acknowledged in a statement.

"Samaras is making selective disaffiliations", commented George Karadzaferis, leader of the party LAOS, which remained outside the Parliament. Political observers expect that Nikos Nikolopoulos will move to the parliamentary group of Independent Greeks, with whose leader, Panos Kamenos, he has already been in close relations.