Chancellor George Osborne has urged the EU to stick with the emergency bailout agreements reached last week
The European Union must stick with the emergency bailout package for the crisis-stricken Greek economy, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
Greek prime minister George Papandreou stunned the markets with a surprise announcement that he intended to put the deal hammered out by EU leaders in Brussels to a referendum.
Amid fears that a "no" vote could trigger a disorderly default by Greece on its debts, leading to chaos in the markets, Mr Osborne said the global recovery depended on the agreement going through.
"Greece has to make its own decisions about how it takes its own decisions," he said.
"But I am very clear that we have got to stick with the agreement that was reached by the eurozone nations - and indeed members of the European Union like Britain - last week.
"That is a very important part of recovery, not just in the eurozone, but for the whole world including the United Kingdom, and if we don't get the eurozone sorted that is going to cause real problems for Britain."
Downing Street indicated that Prime Minister David Cameron first learnt of the plans for a referendum in Greece from news reports on Monday.
Asked for the PM's reaction to the news, Mr Cameron's official spokesman said: "Each country will need to follow its own process and it wouldn't be right for us to comment on that.
"What we got last week was an agreement on a package which comprised the three elements we thought were necessary and important. What we need to do now is focus on filling in the detail.
"It is for Greece to decide on the political processes that are appropriate for it to make decisions."
