November 7, 2011
Greek Prime Minister Giorgios Papandreou is to quit as part of a cross-party agreement to form a broad coalition in Athens. New elections are scheduled for February, but prior to that, the new government is to approve the latest EU bailout package for Greece. Whether it can calm the situation in the country remains doubtful.
After days of political wrangling, Greek Prime Minister Giorgios Papandreou has agreed to step down to allow the formation of an interim coalition government including the opposition conservative New Democracy party.
The new cabinet is to be sworn in within a week and its main task will be to implement the terms of the EU's new rescue package agreed on October 26, which will entail further tough austerity measures for Greece.
The country won't hold new elections until February -- a key demand of Papandreou who had insisted that the interim government should remain in office long enough to approve and implement the EU measures. New Democracy had demanded an election within a few weeks because it wanted to profit from its current strong opinion poll numbers. The election is scheduled to be held on February 19.
New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras has more to lose than to gain by joining the cross-party coalition. He will have to drop his outright opposition to Papandreou's austerity measures over the last 18 months, a stance which enabled the party to build up a lead of nine percentage points over the ruling PASOK party.
Even though taking on government responsibility now is a risky move for Samaras, domestic and international pressure on him to agree to a national unity coalition had become too great for him to resist.
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