A NEW prime minister and government is expected to be named today in Greece after prime minister George Papandreou agreed to step down and make way for an interim unity government.
The agreement to form a cross-party government was struck at a meeting late last night between Mr Papandreou, main opposition leader Antonis Samaras and the country’s president, Karolos Papoulias. The meeting took place in the presidential mansion, located in central Athens.
At the meeting an agreement was reached to form a new government to immediately lead the country to elections after it ratified the decisions taken by the European Council on October 26th,” the president’s office said in a statement.
The statement confirmed that Mr Papandreou would not be a member of the new administration and said that talks would continue today with other parties on the formation of the new government, which is expected to hold office until January or February.
Neither Mr Samaras nor Mr Papandreou, who will remain in office until the new prime minister is appointed, made any comment leaving the meeting.
The three-way meeting, which lasted for about 90 minutes, came after Mr Papandreou, the socialist Pasok leader, told an emergency cabinet sitting that he would stand down if a deal could be struck in advance on a new interim government.
According to a statement issued afterwards, Mr Papandreou told his ministers: “It is clear that this government will pass the baton but it will not pass it to a void – it will pass it to a new government, if we agree on it, and I hope this will happen soon.
“I’m not interested in being prime minister in the new government.”
The main mission of the new administration, Mr Papandreou continued, would be to ratify the October 26th debt deal and ensure that the country receives its next tranche worth €8 billion under its existing bailout programme.
Last night’s meeting was the first between Mr Papandreou and conservative New Democracy chief Antonis Samaras since the Pasok leader last Monday suddenly hatched an ill-fated proposal to hold a referendum on Greece’s latest bailout and haircut plan, agreed at a euro zone summit at the end of October.
Mr Papandreou had to backtrack on the plebiscite plan on Thursday after intense opposition from European leaders and his own MPs.
The meeting, which got under way at 8.30pm, came after a weekend of marathon political negotiations on how best to break the crippling political deadlock that had plunged Greece into crisis for over a week and caused consternation among its European partners.
In acknowledging that he would step down, Mr Papandreou removed a major sticking point between himself and Mr Samaras.
After an earlier noon meeting with the president, Mr Samaras had publicly insisted that Mr Papandreou would have to resign before negotiations could begin.
But Mr Samaras also dropped his insistence that the new government be comprised exclusively of technocrats.
For days the Greek media has been rife with speculation on who the interim premier could be. Among the names being touted were Lucas Papademos, an economist and former vice-president of the European Central Bank.
In the last government reshuffle in June, Mr Papandreou unsuccessful tried to convince Mr Papademos to accept the post of finance minister.
There were also hints that a senior position could go to someone from the New Democracy camp, with Stavros Dimas, a veteran New Democracy MP and minister and a former European commissioner for the environment, and Petros Molyviatis, a former diplomat and foreign minister, being mentioned in this context.
Two other parties have confirmed that they wish to join the interim government: the Popular Orthodox Rally (Laos), led by Yiorgos Karatzaferis, and the Democratic Alliance, led by Dora Bakoyannis.
However, after news of the deal between Mr Papandreou and Mr Samaras was announced, Fotis Kouvelis, leader of the Democratic Left, told Skai TV that his four MPs would not participate in the new government.
The leader of the Communist Party, the third strongest in parliament, also said that she would not attend today’s meeting of party leaders, which will be chaired by the president. Aleka Papariga said that her party will “go to the people” instead.