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The "Holy Week" for Greece, as most Greek media are calling it, began with a meeting between Prime Minister George Papandreou and President Karolos Papoulias. The meeting took place behind closed doors and on the eve of the crucial summit of the European Union on Friday.

In his statements after the meeting, the Prime Minister called on all political forces in Greece to show a sense of unity to enable the country to attend these talks "head up." "This is the most critical week for Europe and Greece and the decisions adopted will determine the fate of the euro area," he said.

Shortly after the meeting, government spokesman Ilias Mosialos announced that George Papandreou would inform the leaders of the parliamentary political forces about how Greece would appear at the negotiating table. When asked whether the Prime Minister had discussed with the President the option of requiring an increased majority in the vote on the bill, which will abolish the collective labour agreements and introduce the labour reserve, the payroll table in the public sector and will liberalize hundreds of jobs, he replied that there had been no such conversation.

Even the appearance of the Prime Minister himself was indicative of the extremely difficult position of his government. Later today, there will be an informal meeting of the Council of Ministers, and the PASOK parliamentary committee will meet on Tuesday: the only item on the agenda is the vote on the bill.

While according to many commentators that vote will be decisive for the future of the government, some of the deputies are threatening that they will not support the bill because of the pressure to which their voters are subjecting them. Former Minister of Employment Louka Katseli, who had deliberately opposed the abolition of collective labour agreements, while she was in office, announced her intention to vote against this article of the legal text. Several members of the parliamentary group are threatening to give a negative vote and party authorities are trying to persuade them to change their position. Commentators argue that PASOK has directed its efforts towards convincing them to give up their seats, which may then be taken by the next member on the list in order to limit the maximum number of cases of removal from the party, because in this way it would lose its parliamentary majority.

The fact that PASOK is like a pressure cooker was confirmed by a joint letter from three of the key ministers in the government. In the joint text, which was published on the personal websites of Minister of Education Anna Diamantopoulou, Minister of Health Andreas Loverdos and Minister of Transport Yiannis Ragousis, they called for all necessary reforms to be urgently undertaken and identified trade unions as the main culprits for not having carried out any privatisation in the past two years. According to many commentators, their gesture is indicative of the fact that a process to determine tomorrow's party leader is going on within PASOK. Others accused them of being late and behaving as if they are not members of the government team responsible for carrying out the privatization. Indicative is the fact that the first response to the letter came from the Minister of Finance and Vice President of the Government Evangelos Venizelos. He said that it was written in support of the policies and actions of the Cabinet. The response from the Prime Minister came much later. According to his associates, the ministers had informed him about the letter before publishing it on their sites. Commentators are unanimous in their opinion that the events of this week could prove crucial for Greece, also in terms of its government.

At the same time, the Sunday edition of To Vima newspaper comes to confirm that the Greek government knew all too well what Greece could expect after the signing of the Memorandum of economic assistance with the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank. It also shows the fears and concerns of the Cabinet, which led Greece to its present condition. 

"We were like prostitutes after the first workday," said a senior government official in an attempt to describe the mental condition of the members of the Council of Ministers during the day of the meeting at which they discussed the ratification of the Memorandum of 5 May 2010. "We looked at each other and we were all pale. We felt ashamed because we could not believe that we - PASOK - took the country into the bosom of the International Monetary Fund and cut the wages and pensions. Ever since then we have become true prostitutes. We have done the same things many times, feeling no shame."
 
According to the publication, all PASOK politicians admit in private conversations that although the Memorandum provides for some badly needed reforms, it means leading the Greek economy to recession and mortgaging the country to the benefit of its creditors. They recognize, however, that the Memorandum was the final decision to avoid bankruptcy and rescue bank deposits and pensions because the Government had failed to implement any of the previous solutions.