November 5, 2011
Prime Minister George Papandreou meets the Greek president on Saturday in his drive for a new coalition government to save the nation from bankruptcy and prevent its crisis spreading chaos across the euro zone.
The socialist premier is due to meet President Karolos Papoulias at noon (6 a.m. EDT), hours after surviving a parliamentary confidence vote and signaling he was ready to resign.
In a late night speech to parliament, Papandreou said the new coalition should be formed to ram a 130-billion-euro ($179 billion) bailout deal through the assembly, the last financial lifeline for a nation that is due to run out of money in December.
Without saying when he would 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 Saturday.
Under heavy domestic and international pressure, Papandreou has backed down on a proposal for a referendum on the euro zone rescue. Greek voters could well have rejected the deal, potentially sinking euro zone leaders' attempts to stop the debt crisis devastating economies such as Italy and Spain.
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