ATHENS: Greece’s prime minister faces a grilling from the leaders of Germany and France today after fighting to win the backing of his cabinet to hold a referendum on a 130 billion-euro bailout package.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel summoned George Papandreou for crisis talks in Cannes, before a G20 summit of major world economies, to push for rapid implementation of measures to tackle the euro zone debt crisis, which Athens has thrown into doubt.
”This announcement took the whole of Europe by surprise,” Sarkozy said on the steps of the Elysee Palace in Paris. ”The plan … is the only way to solve Greece’s debt problem.”
Papandreou’s gamble guarantees weeks of uncertainty just as the 17-nation European currency area is desperate for a period of calm to implement the remedies agreed last week to corral its sovereign debt crisis.
Some of Papandreou’s party called for him to quit, accusing him of endangering Greek euro membership with his shock decision to call a popular vote, a move that pummelled the euro and global stocks.
But the cabinet support at least gives him a stay of execution before a confidence vote in parliament on Friday.
”The referendum will be a clear mandate and a clear message inside and outside Greece on our European course and participation in the euro,” Papandreou told a cabinet meeting that lasted seven hours.
”No one will be able to doubt Greece’s course within the euro.” (UNI)