Greece's ruling conservative New Democracy (ND) party increased its number of legislators on Monday with the return of two independent MPs, two weeks after the loss of one of its coalition partners which shrank the government's majority in parliament to three seats.

Costas Markopoulos and Theodoros Soldatos, who had left ND over the past year due to diverging views on economic policy, joined the party's parliamentary group again, just a few hours after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras called on "forces of the centre-right to unite around ND to create a new, stronger Greece."

With their return, the conservative party now has 127 deputies in the 300-member strong assembly and the two-partite coalition with the socialists controls 155 seats.