New call for Greek PM Papandreou to stand down
Greek opposition leader Antonis Samaras repeats his call for Prime Minister George Papandreou to resign and, as Jane Deith reports, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi’s future is also looking more uncertain.
Mr Samaras will meet the Greek president within the next 24 hours after calling for a short-term coalition government to secure parliamentary approval for a eurozone bailout and to push for early elections.
George Papandreou had earlier promised negotiations to form a coalition will start imminently, in a new effort to save his country from bankruptcy and prevent the crisis from sweeping over Europe and beyond.
Papandreou told the Greek president that the nation had to forge a political consensus to prove it wanted to keep the euro.
“In order to create this wider cooperation, we will start the necessary procedures and contacts soon,” he told reporters 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.
“My aim is to immediately create a government of cooperation,” he told the president 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.”
