Kai Ryssdal: On the face of it, what Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou did yesterday makes sense. Offering the people a chance to vote in a country that basically invented the chance to vote.
You wouldn’t normally expect financial market pandemonium to follow. But these aren’t normal times. Investors and entire economies are fragile. So when Papandreou said he’d hold a referendum on the latest eurozone bailout, what followed was sadly predictable: Stock markets tanked; currencies gyrated. And speculation mounted that the rescue package hammered out last week is already unraveling.
From the European Desk in London, Stephen Beard gets us going.
Stephen Beard: No one was expecting it, not even his cabinet colleagues. Last night, Prime Minister Papandreou stunned Greece and the rest of Europe by offering his voters a say on the latest bailout package.
Blanka Kolenikova of IHS Global Insight.
Blanka Kolenikova: It seems like a kind of act of desperation to receive wider and better public mandate for pushing through further austerity in the future.
The move was undeniably democratic but also risky. If the Greeks reject the bailout package, the country will almost certainly default and then possibly crash out of the eurozone.
Most Greeks want to stick with the euro, but commentator John Psarapolous says the people are so fed up with austerity, they could all too easily vote no in a referendum.
John Psarapolous: People are very disoriented and they’re suffering from the economic austerity measures and the collapse of the Greek economy into recession for the third year running. There’s no way of knowing what will happen.
Even before the referendum, Papandreou’s move has already backfired, says Greek journalist Matina Stevis.
Matina Stevis: What Papandreou saw as a good move for him internally, politically in Greece, is turning into the market’s biggest nightmare.
And Greece’s biggest European partners, Germany and France, are turning their guns on the Greek leader. At this week’s G20 summit, Papandreou will come under intense pressure to reconsider his referendum.
In London, I’m Stephen Beard for Marketplace.
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