Franco-German ultimatum spells end for Papandreou

Extraordinary the spectacle last night of Sarkozy and Merkel dictating to Greece the actual question they expected to be asked in Papandreou’s proposed referendum, i.e. Greeks should be asked to judge whether they should or should not remain within the eurozone. Sarkozy went one step further in humiliating Greece by castigating the country’s political system for failing to produce consensus and solidarity – EU trademarks – and compared this unfavourably to what had happened in Ireland, Portugal and Spain, where similarly difficult austerity measures have had to be implemented.

Now, when Papandreou came up with the idea of a referendum – without consulting his cabinet, let alone Greece's EU ‘partners’ – he must have thought that the question would relate to the latest bailout deal agreed on 26 October, providing Greece with a 50% debt haircut; but the French and Germans made it clear to him that such a question would effectively be translated as a referendum on in or out of the euro. But, in Greece, apart from the extreme left and extreme right, there is absolutely no desire to leave the euro – in fact, Greeks are ardent supporters of the euro and of the European project in general – so a referendum on returning to the drachma would be not only a pointless distraction but also put into question the entire strategic basis on which Greece has operated since 1974, and no Greek parliament is going to approve legislation for such a poll. Indeed, reaction among Pasok MPs and cabinet ministers this morning has been horror – at the humiliation heaped on Greece by the Franco-German ultimatum – and revulsion – at Papandreou’s disastrous miscalculation and ill-thought out plan for a referendum – and it is only a matter of time before Papandreou resigns