Editing Costas Simitis (section)

=== Political activity after 2004 ===
After the 2004 electoral defeat, Simitis remained a Member of the Hellenic Parliament for Piraeus, sitting on the Standing Committee on National Defence and Foreign Affairs. Re-elected in [[2007 Greek legislative election|September 2007]], he entered into a conflict with his successor as PASOK leader, George Papandreou, on the political choices of the party. In June 2008, he was excluded from the PASOK parliamentary group after opposing Papandreou's position in favour of a referendum on the [[Treaty of Lisbon]],<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.xpatathens.com/foreign_affairs/simitis-ousted-from-parliamentary-group/|title=Simitis Ousted from Parliamentary Group|newspaper=XPAT Athens|location=Athens|date=13 June 2008|access-date=23 January 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201184632/http://www.xpatathens.com/foreign_affairs/simitis-ousted-from-parliamentary-group/|archive-date=1 February 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.hri.org/news/greek/apeen/2008/08-06-12_3.apeen.html|title=Simitis out of Par'l group|newspaper=[[Athens News Agency]]|location=Athens|date=12 June 2008|access-date=23 January 2014}}</ref> which he had helped to draft as member of the [[Amato Group]]. Though never formally excluded from the party, he kept his distance with the leadership and could not come to terms with Papandreou in time to be a candidate for the [[2007 Greek legislative election|2009 elections]], upon which he definitively left his MP seat for Piraeus. Before his departure, he warned of financial mismanagement that would lead to a [[Greek government-debt crisis|harsh austerity regime]] in Greece imposed by the [[International Monetary Fund]], which eventually came the following year.<ref name="ap"/>