Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Papandreou survives confidence vote

Financial Times
June 22, 2011

Greece’s embattled government won a vote of confidence in parliament early on Wednesday, clearing a significant obstacle to a fresh €120bn bail-out by international lenders.

The confidence motion in George Papandreou’s reshuffled team passed by 155 votes to 143, with all of his Socialist party deputies voting for the government.

“If we are afraid, if we throw away this opportunity, then history will judge us very harshly,” Mr Papandreou said in a final appeal for support before the vote.

The prime minister’s government must now rapidly pass two more tests – enacting a €28bn austerity plan and the laws needed to implement it – to win a new bail-out to avert the eurozone’s first sovereign default and possible global economic disaster.

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