Carte blanche for a reshuffle by Papandreou

PASOK president George Papandreou gave the "green light" to PM Lucas Papademos to reshuffle the current government. During the meeting of the three political leaders involved in Papademos’ government, Papandreou raised the issue of the government’s performance. They discussed both the issue of persons and the number
of ministers in the government scheme. Papandreou urged the PM to handle the issues of reshuffle, the number and the evaluation of ministers concerning government members from PASOK as he sees fit.

During the meeting Papademos particularly mentioned the participation of parties in his government and the best method of fostering understanding among the three sides. He gave the three leaders proposals that describe the political framework of obligations, commitments and conduct of their parties.

This framework focuses on the daily practice of the three parties, so as to avoid the obstacles against the work of the government. For example, there was the matter of negative votes on bills by ND members, on the occasion of the forthcoming multi-bill from the Finance ministry. According to reports there were many disagreements on the part of the leaders and the only thing they agreed upon was to study the text and review it shortly in another meeting.

According to reports, PASOK leader George Papandreou stressed the issue of the dissenting ND members. He talked about two-sided behavior by Antonis Samaras' party, saying that it rests on two bases, co-governing and the opposition, and that he phenomenon of the "blue" members voting against bills that are the result of contractual obligations of government cooperation cannot go on.

Finally, Papandreou raised the issue of a temporal extension of the government’s life span, something upon which LAOS president George Karatzaferis agreed.