Papandreou Uninterested in Sabotaging Parliamentary Majority

He also shot down claims that he is planning to create his own political party. On Sunday, Papandreou voted down the omnibus bill's second article. The article's aim is for the creation of new legal banking framework.

Papandreou stated to Bloomberg: "It was a principled stance. I would vote against this if a similar vote came to the parliament...I can understand that in very difficult circumstances we may need at some points to privatize with the taxpayer taking a hit. But to put that into law so that this is sort of a policy ad infinitum, particularly when Greeks have sacrificed so much, to take the losses again and again for bailouts of banks, I am against that in principle".

The Hellenic government won the vote with 152 MPS in support of the first article and 151 in support of the second. The PASOK leader further stated,"I did not and I would not jeopardize the majority in Parliament. This was a personal vote, a political vote and it was of course a statement on some of the things which I think that we need to see not only in Greece but in Europe. Because we have systemic problems around the banking crisis". Papandreou further added, "We haven't moved far [on these].

The former Prime Minister did concur that the government will be able to successfully close the adjustment program and stay in office until 2016. He stated: "I think it's possible". George Papandreou denied any plans to resign from PASOK and develop his own political entity.