Greek politicians try to form coalition
Source: Agencies |
November 6, 2011, Sunday
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NEGOTIATIONS to form a Greek coalition government will start soon, Prime Minister George Papandreou said yesterday, launching a new push to save the nation from bankruptcy and prevent its crisis from sweeping over Europe and beyond.
Papandreou told the Greek president the nation had to forge a political consensus to prove it wanted to keep the euro, as European leaders try to persuade the outside world the currency bloc can overcome its huge debt problems.
"In order to create this wider cooperation, we will start the necessary procedures and contacts soon," he said after meeting President Karolos Papoulias.
Hours after surviving a parliamentary confidence vote, Papandreou said Greece had to avoid early elections, calling for a broad-based government to secure a bailout from the eurozone, the main weapon in Europe's battle against the spreading economic crisis.
"My aim is to immediately create a government of cooperation," he told the president in the presence of reporters before they held talks behind closed doors. "A lack of consensus would worry our European partners over our country's will to stay in the eurozone."
Political sources said negotiations are being led behind the scenes by Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who aims to head the new coalition.
The sources said Papandreou, a socialist whose father and grandfather were Greek prime ministers, would step aside for Venizelos, the man he beat to his PASOK party's leadership in 2004.
Without saying when he might quit, Papandreou -- who has led Greece through two years of political, economic and social turmoil - said he was ready to discuss who should lead the new government which would rule until elections probably early next year.
"The last thing I care about is my post. I don't care even if I am not re-elected. The time has come to make a new effort ... I never thought of politics as a profession," he told parliament before the vote in the early hours of yesterday.
A new coalition is likely to exclude the main opposition party, the conservative New Democracy.
Papandreou said the coalition should aim to ram the 130-billion-euro bailout deal through the assembly, the last financial lifeline for a nation that is due to run out of money in December.
Under domestic and international pressure, the prime minister has backed down on a proposal for a referendum on the eurozone rescue.
Papandreou told the Greek president the nation had to forge a political consensus to prove it wanted to keep the euro, as European leaders try to persuade the outside world the currency bloc can overcome its huge debt problems.
"In order to create this wider cooperation, we will start the necessary procedures and contacts soon," he said after meeting President Karolos Papoulias.
Hours after surviving a parliamentary confidence vote, Papandreou said Greece had to avoid early elections, calling for a broad-based government to secure a bailout from the eurozone, the main weapon in Europe's battle against the spreading economic crisis.
"My aim is to immediately create a government of cooperation," he told the president in the presence of reporters before they held talks behind closed doors. "A lack of consensus would worry our European partners over our country's will to stay in the eurozone."
Political sources said negotiations are being led behind the scenes by Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who aims to head the new coalition.
The sources said Papandreou, a socialist whose father and grandfather were Greek prime ministers, would step aside for Venizelos, the man he beat to his PASOK party's leadership in 2004.
Without saying when he might quit, Papandreou -- who has led Greece through two years of political, economic and social turmoil - said he was ready to discuss who should lead the new government which would rule until elections probably early next year.
"The last thing I care about is my post. I don't care even if I am not re-elected. The time has come to make a new effort ... I never thought of politics as a profession," he told parliament before the vote in the early hours of yesterday.
A new coalition is likely to exclude the main opposition party, the conservative New Democracy.
Papandreou said the coalition should aim to ram the 130-billion-euro bailout deal through the assembly, the last financial lifeline for a nation that is due to run out of money in December.
Under domestic and international pressure, the prime minister has backed down on a proposal for a referendum on the eurozone rescue.
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