U Turn: Papandreou Cancels Greek Referendum On EU Bailout

After being summoned to an emergency meeting with Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, and Angela Merkel, German chancellor, Greek PM George Papandreou announced that a planned referendum in Greece over whether to accept the additional austerity measures demanded by the EU as part of a second €130 billion bailout had been canceled.

Papandreou had announced the referendum after wide spread opposition to the new measures, but it provoked outrage among EU leaders who threatened to cut off all EU funds to Greece.

Without the funds from the EU, Greece wouldn't have been able to pay more than 700,000 public sector workers and more than 2 million pensioners at the end of November.Reportedly, the Greek government has already started postponing payments to suppliers.

In a meeting with his cabinet after his talks with Sarkozy and Merkel, Papandreou had offered his resignation, but it was withdrawn after the opposition New Democracy conservative party came aboard and said they would back the new measures in order to keep Greece in the eurozone.

Papandreou said: “We had a dilemma: consensus or a referendum ... Failure to back the package would mean the beginning of our departure from the euro. But if we have consensus, then we don’t need a referendum.”

How this is going to fly with the Greek electorate is another story.

Civil servants are going to mount another anti-austerity protest outside parliament on today, with officials from their union, Adedy, complaining that the latest round of pay cuts had reduced average public sector salaries by more than 20 per cent.

“We will send the message to the government that we have reached the limit of what we can take, “ a union official said.

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