Greek President Karolos Papoulias called a meeting with political party leaders for today, after squabbling over the next premier pushed unity government aims into disarray and undermined the bid to secure bailout funds needed to prevent a financial collapse.
Prime Minister George Papandreou met with Papoulias in Athens yesterday to resign as criticism grew over delays in naming a new prime minister. Papandreou attended the meeting with Antonis Samaras, leader of the opposition New Democracy party, and opposition LAOS party leader George Karatzaferis, who then abandoned the talks.
“Despite our differences we leave clashes and sterile opposition to one side,” Papandreou said in an address to the nation televised live on state-run NET TV.
Papandreou didn’t name a new prime minister in his speech. Greece’s two biggest political parties agreed to name parliament speaker Filippos Petsalnikos to head the government rather than former European Central Bank Vice President Lucas Papademos, To Vima newspaper reported, without saying how it got the information.
Papoulias called the meeting for 10 a.m. local time today with political party leaders. No official announcement was made on who will staff the new government, and Papandreou has not formally resigned.
Euro Falls
The euro slid the most in more than a year versus the dollar yesterday. The shared currency slumped 2.1 percent to $1.3542 at 5 p.m. New York time, its biggest drop on a closing basis since August 2010. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed down 3.7 percent at 1,229.10.
European stocks fell with the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropping 1.7 percent. Greece’s benchmark general index fell 1.6 percent to 767.11 at the 5:20 p.m. close in Athens, after two days of advances.
The yield on the 10-year Greek bond dropped 13 basis points to 27.63 percent, after seven straight days of increases.
