In June 1963, tensions that had begun to show between Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis and the Crown came to a head. On the afternoon of June 11, King Paul accepts a resignation letter from a Macedonian politician. The reason for his resignation was the rejection of his proposal to cancel the official visit of the kings to London, on the grounds that he wanted to avoid incidents like that of Betis Abatelos in April 1963, which tarnished the image of the Greek royal family.

In fact, the Karamanlis-Palatiou rupture was linked, among other things, to the Prime Minister’s efforts to revise the Constitution in order to strengthen the power of the government. For Con. Karamanli, the tsarist interventionist methods were incompatible with the country’s parliamentary system.

The ERE leader provided for a direct appeal to the polling stations with the current majoritarian system. However, this was not accepted by either the Crown or the Union of the Center, and therefore a compromise decision was made to form a transitional government under the leadership of P. Pipinelis. After pressure from Georgios Papandreou, he was replaced by a provisional government under St. Mavromichalis, and the country went to the polls on November 3rd. The Union of the Center was the first party to bring the centrist forces to the leadership of the country for the first time in 11 years.

“Those conditions that I have always considered necessary for the fulfillment of my mission, as I perceive it at least, do not exist in the country. […] When a politician knows what needs to be done in his country and cannot implement it because he is denied the necessary conditions, he must, instead of resigning himself to his conscience, leave,” the letter of the ERE leader says, which he wrote On December 9, 1963, which was published by Kathimerini the following day.After appointing P. Kanellopoulos as his successor, Con. Karamanlis left for Paris, where he lived for the next 11 years, until his return after the fall of the dictatorship in 1974.