Early on Thursday, rumors were circulating that Greek prime minister George Papandreou would resign amid debt-deal negotiations, and ahead of a vote of confidence tomorrow that could very possibly take him down anyway. But by the day’s end, not only was Papandreou still in charge, but he’d withdrawn his plan to put the loan deal to a referendum and announced that the opposition New Democracy Party has decided to back the bailout after all. Fearing that putting the deal to a public vote could threaten Greece’s membership in the European Union, even Papandreou’s deputy opposed the move, and so now they’ll just put the debt plan to parliament instead. Papandreou may or may not see it all through himself; in a matter of hours, the European political madness starts again with Friday’s confidence vote.
