The economic turmoil in Greece has rattled markets worldwide, set the streets alight with anti-austerity demonstrations, has raised questions about the euro, and now has toppled the government. After a raucous few weeks in which Prime Minister George Papandreou put forward the idea of a referendum on whether to accept strict debt-forgiveness conditions, a new ruling coalition has been forged to lead Greece through an especially rocky upcoming month: The country will run out of money mid-December.
The move came after intense pressure from the European Union for Greece to move quickly on pushing through the bailout conditions. More from Reuters:
Prime Minister George Papandreou sealed a deal on Sunday with the conservative opposition on the crisis coalition to approve the international financial aid package.
Papandreou informed European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, by phone on Monday about efforts to form the coalition, his office said.
The Greek leaders' job on Monday was to agree a new prime minister, possibly a technocrat who must exert authority over hardened party chiefs from the center-left and center-right, and made decisions which will affect Greeks for a decade.
Papandreou also spoke to conservative New Democracy party leader Antonis Samaras on the coalition, and his office said more talks would follow later in the day.
In an early sign that a broad compromise will be hard to achieve, President Karolos Papoulias's plan to summon the heads of all leading parties for more negotiations on Monday was dropped after two leftist parties refused to attend.
The impatience of other nations is palpable, with Germany's finance minister stressing today that Athens needs to get in gear.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble insisted Monday that Greece needed to stick to its bailout plan obligations regardless of its domestic turmoil.
"Whatever will happen, Greece has to stick to what has been agreed. With a new government, with an old government, with new elections or a referendum or not," Schaeuble told a 'Future of Europe' conference at Tampere University in southwestern Finland.
His comments came as Greece tried to form a new cross-party government a week after outgoing Prime Minister George Papandreou enraged European leaders with a shock announcement to put the latest debt-bailout package to a referendum and then hastily dropped the plan.
The European Union and especially the eurozone "can always help to give some assistance to help (the Greeks) help themselves," said Schaeuble, who was flanked by Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen and Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen.
(Photo by Vladimir Rys/Getty Images)
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