Great ace up the government's sleeve kept for Washington and Berlin

Greece’s future to be decided in the next four days

 

The coming four days will begin with two bets on the part of the leadership, as both the premier, George Papandreou, and the vice president of the government, Evangelos Venizelos, will have decisive meetings as to where the country is going.

Papandreou is to see the German chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday, whereas Venizelos is already in Washington for the IMF summit and has planned to meet with IMF chief, Christine Lagarde. The latter meeting is supposed to be the “key” to the ratification of the mid-term plan review for 2011-14.

Venizelos will meet Lagarde for the first time since the Troika representatives left Greece unexpectedly Greece, but already during her speech at the opening of the summit she asked for a combined mediation by the ECB and the EFSF. Moreover, she highlighted that there is an alarm bell called recession - perhaps already at the threshold of many countries - and thus such a development might be endangered.

In the beginning of the coming week, Papandreou will travel to Berlin with development issues at the top of his agenda, expecting to draw Merkel’s attention to the fact that Greece needs the immediate implementation of the July 21st agreement. The goal is for the country to become fertile ground for all investors who wish to start businesses Thus, this coming Thursday he is to meet with all relevant ministers and business partners to discuss ways of accomplishing this as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the parliamentary group is bleak, with the other government vice president Theodoros Pangalos resurrecting the idea of a coalition government, although the PM had ruled out the notion when he spoke at the TIF earlier this month.

Nevertheless, those in the know believe this does not stand even the slightest of chances, especially after the discussion on the status of the economy in the past ten years kicks off at the economy committee.