Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou. Photo credit: Parti Socialiste

The markets cheer as Greece moves to ask for the €30 billion bailout package, after a week of intense financial pressure forces the debt-laden country to realize that promises aren’t enough.

Greece, long struggling with its sovereign debt, pulled the trigger and said today that it will ask its eurozone partners for that €30 billion rescue package they offered two weeks ago. The country’s Prime Minister, George Papandreou, said today, “We believe our European partners will act decisively and provide Greece with a safe haven to rebuild our ship [of state] with strong and reliable materials.”

Papandreou said that he’d hope that just the existence of the eurozone led bailout package, approved on 11 April, would be enough to quiet the markets and rebuild investor confidence in the debt-plagued country. But the request comes after a particularly bad week for the country: A major sell-off of Greek bonds yesterday, driving up the yield on 10-year debt to the highest since Greece joined the eurozone at 8.83 percent; an announcement Thursday that Greece’s budget deficit for 2009 was revised up, from 12.9 to 13.6 percent of GDP; and that same day, Moody’s debt ratings agency downgraded Greece’s debt another notch, its second downgrade this year. Greece’s first major debt is due in four weeks and, to top it all off, internal unrest continues to grow as public sector employees claim that they’re being unfairly burdened by the country’s austerity measures.

So what’s a Greek to do?

The country’s only option, it seems, is to call in the €30 billion bilateral loan rescue, as well as the €10 to €15 billion International Monetary Fund loan, the detail of which are still being worked out. Already, the markets today have reacted positively, with the euro rising, while the observers are claiming a bit of “told you so.”

But is it going to be enough? Stephanie Flanders, economics editor for the BBC, says maybe not, writing on her ridiculously-named “Stephanomics” blog today, “[I]n financial crises, a few days delay can be a dangerous thing. What the markets considered inevitable last week may not be enough to save Greece today.”

Part of what precipitated this bad economic week for Greece is how long it was taking to hammer out a firm bailout deal; Germany, in particular, was guilty of holding up the process, owing to domestic dissent over the bailout. The first funding Greece is likely to see will be from the IMF. Said Flanders, “The questions will now turn to when, exactly, Greece and the IMF will be able to reach a deal; what the conditions will be; and whether the amount of money involved can possible be enough.”

Martina Stevis, writing in today’s Guardian, said she doesn’t blame for Papandreou for finally asking for a bailout. In fact, she doesn’t entirely blame Greece for needing the bailout: “As the details of the strings attached to the Greece-EU-IMF deal become public, we should take much longer than a minute to reflect upon the series of events and choices that have brought this country to this situation today. This is not a Greek tragedy, as innumerable unimaginative front pages have declared. It is an international tragedy that befalls the Greeks – this time around. Portugal and Spain are next in line.”