just as it began. will he stay or will he go? that's the big issue in the birth place of democracy as the greek prime minister, george papandreou and his government faces a crucial confidence vote in parliament later today. the outcome of the vote may have seemed a bit predictable just 24 hours ago. now it seems it's far from certain. after mr. papandreou backed away from a referendum on a debt deal he announced days earlier. all of this comes as leaders of the g20 are gathered. it's sure to be dominated with talk about gross's future and the escalating crisis that's gripping the euro zone. relief surrounding that possible aboutturn on the greek referendum is moving stocks but also the bond markets, because ten-year greek bonds are down just a little bit today, still yielding around 2 %. let's go live to athens where we can join jim bolden. the day is young over there in the greek capital. let's have a quick look at what we could see coming out of greece and this confidence vote, jim. >> reporter: well, it's a lot of different scenarios we could see today. at least we know today i think we will get a definitive answer, won't we, nina. by midnight athens time we should have a vote in the parliament for this confidence vote. that will decide many things, of course, it will decide whether mr. papandreou's government survives and also decide in many ways whether mr. papandreou himself stays as prime minister. he might win a confidence vote but there's a deal behind the scenes for him to step down anyway. then there's a government of national unity. last night the opposition leader rejected mr. papandreou's call for this coming together under mr. papandreou. they called again for him to resign and called again for snap elections. mr. papandreou is saying that's a disaster. we should not be having snap elections at a time when we're trying to become an economy. the debate hasn't started yet. it will be going all day and all evening, though. nina? >> to a certain extent, jim, what we have is finally the greek people seeing eye to eye with everybody else in the european union and saying perhaps we're confused, we didn't want to referendum either, it's bad pr for us? >> reporter: it's confusion, again, interviewing people yesterday, it's humiliation. some of the newspapers here in greece, you have one that says -- one of the more populous papers, he's ruining greece until his final fall. that's from one of the tabloids. other papers are saying -- this one says, i will give you everything for my empty chair. it's mr. papandreou's i'm not still sitting here in a chair, i am leaving this government. it's not just about me and my chair. some of the more stayed newspapers like these two says the country is walking on edge, the government is walking on edge. country at the drink. this one simply just says, again, walking on edge. so that's how the feeling is today, the newspapers understand, the people understand it's a crucial day in greece. of course it has so many more implications around the euro zone, don't it, nina? >> it does, you're getting the feeling, jim, where you aring with the greeks are contemplating a future outside of the euro zone at this point? >> reporter: well, you know, we've said it all along, haven't we? there is no way to lead the euro zone, technically. it's not within the treaty. everybody i talk to says we are europeans, we use the euro. i think they find that question insulting, some people, when i ask them that. they don't understand where that's coming from. they've been part of the euro zone for ten years, they were take noon the euro zone. one woman i spoke to yesterday said don't forget we qualified to be in the euro, we deserved to be in the euro. don't tell people that we are somehow lazy, that was her term, that we ruined it and want to get out of the euro. it wasn't us. it was the politicians. we deserve to be in the euro. that's the feeling i get here. >> jim bolden joining us live from athens. many thanks for your great reporting on the scene there throughout these current days which have been dominated by headlines about greece, not just on the scene there inside athens. george papandreou has been the lightning rod for criticism of greece and its role in pulling the rest of the euro zone into crisis. it's probably fair to say mr. papandreou's own job is one that not all that many people would actually want at this time. some of his peers are game enough for that. more on this story, let's join john defterios in abu dhabi. good to see you, john. who is interested in this job? it seems like a pretty tough call. >> reporter: it is a call indeed, nina. george papandreou is battling a tricky point at this point. he's made a huge u-turn. he's not forget, he went to cannes saying i need to build a consensus. if i don't have one, i will go to a referendum. he comes back into greece, builds a consensus within his own party but did not get the support across party lines from his opposition. had a blistering attack last night. one of the people he was able to get back on board last night is evangelos venizelos. also, it's worth noting here in 2007, he did challenge papandreou for the top job and didn't win it. in fact, he wouldn't want to see it go to a unity government. he'd like to have a crack at power. antonis samaras came out and took the stage, a blistering attack saying you need to go, mr. papandreou. then we can discuss a unity government. also worth noting that samaras and papandreou were college roommates in amherst in the united states, shared a dorm room and were in the political scene there. another option jim bolden eluded to here, if you have a caretaker government, lucas papademos, from 2002 to 2010 he served as the vice president of the european central bank along with juan claude trichet. he's built up a lot of credibility. when he was a banker, he worked to bring greece below the threshold. it was the first time they had the criteria of 3% of gdp. things unraveled after the olympics. eu development funds for roads and bridges, and to build up the olympics and tram systems, they spent a lot of money between 2002 and 2010 and that's when the budget deficit ran out of control and led to this crisis we see today, nina. it's not clear if papandreou survives for the sake of keeping greece into the euro or not. the market reaction so far is one of relief that the referendum is not going to happen. >> and when politicians take the helm, so much of it is dependent on the economic cycle and luck there, john, isn't it? it will take an awful long time for this recovery to take hold, if indeed it does, in greece. >> within we talk about the policies, you get caught up in the drama of the politics. behind the scenes here we have an economy that is crumbling. we're looking at an unemployment rate of 16 1.5%. you have youth unemployment of 32%. this is an economy contracting at 7% right now in the third year of a recession. look at the ten-year bond yield, it's at 26%. the two-year is trading for the first time in history above 100%. those are two indicators showing that they do not have confidence that greece, even though if they get a 50% haircut, can work out of this huge debt crisis they're facing today. nina? >> i was looking at those bond yields just before coming on the show and myself, john, i had the same reaction, i had to blunk. they were not just in the double digits but in the triple digits. john defterios in abu dhabi. markets broadly speaking doing quite a bit better in today's session thanks to, of course, not just the surprise rate cut coming from the ecb but optimism that greece will eventually manage to try and scrap that referendum. and now what we have is news confirmed -- now that we have that particular news confirmed what we have is the markets, as you can see, putting on cautious optimism. in particular, the cac 40. usually it's the dax. today we have the cac 40 up to the tune of 0.75%, partly because a number of the french banks are the ones that everybody is worried about. they're the most exposed to greek sovereign debt. we've also gotten over the strong performer in today's session. it is financial stocks. let's look into some of the french banks in particular. paribas up to the tune of 7.5%. is one of the banks particularly exposed to potential writedowns coming from greek sovereign debt, also deutsche bank as w l well. that bank up as well. one of the reasons we have the dax up 2, a little bit less than the cac 0. we have big rallies for the likes of alpha bank in greece and ing, this company is largely moving on the back of earnings forecast. it's third quarter earnings beat analyst estimates. as you can see it's up to the tune of 10% in the first 11 minutes or so of trading. in the meantime, let's move along and talk about asia. investors broadly speaking picked up on the positive sentiment we saw coming out of the of europe today to try and lead the stock markets towards a higher finish for the end of the week. japan's nikkei was up by 2%. a noticeable exception was sony, which slumped almost 8%, after its fiscal second quarter loss wa announced. the hang seng was up about 3%. the composite finished 0.8% higher and we saw a jump in mining stocks, helping the asx in sydney towards a higher close at the end of the day as well. we saw the japanese cameramaker olympus delaying the release of its second quarter earnings statement while an investigation continues into some of its past acquisitions. that's a story we've been covering today as well as other days here on "world business today," some of our view s may know. speculation is mounting that the greek referendum may eventually be dropped helped to boost the markets, too. the dow jones industrial average surged by 1.75%, closing just about the 12,000 mark, which is enough to close a psychological barrier, we should say. the nasdaq up 2.2% and the s&p up about 2%. robust gains for those two markets there. charging to europe's rescue with the surprise rate cut on just his second day of the job. after the break, we'll learn more about the new man in the top job at the ecb. some people call him supermario. hello and welcome back. you're watching "world business today." let's bring you the scene in cannes. it's in the second day of the g20 summit, the 20 leaders of the world's largest economies gathering there in the south of france at the time of unprecedented difficulty, especially for the euro zone. and france is hosting that summit. as you can see, we're seeing a number of the delegates arriving, the heads of state. we've had a head of state from india arriving and now we have other heads of state gathering there at the g20. now, he may not have stolen the headlines from greece but the new head of the european central bank did make a splash on his first week on the job on thursday. former goldman sachs executive mar mario draghi. max foster has more on the man they're calling super mario. >> reporter: new leader, new direction. it made just two days for mario draghi to make an impact. >> the governing council decided to reduce the key ecb interest rates by 25 basis points. >> reporter: from wall street to rome and now to the top of european economics, mario draghi's career has lived up to his nickname, super mario. his biggest challenge yet, running europe's central bank. >> i'm honored to be considered a candidate for the presence of the ecb. >> reporter: mario draghi held a string of top jobs, including at goldman sachs and the world bank. in 2005 he game governor of the bank of italy. managing inflation was his goal. then the 2008 crisis hit and the rules changed. dealing with the banks became his top priority. >> we have two leading projects this year, one is the capital on one hand and the other one is we have to roll back the moral hazard that still prevails in the financial services industry. >> reporter: renowned as a savvy but likable politician, draghi's knack for detail won his friends and admirers. he himself believes his policies at the bank of italy helped prevent the banks from going under. >> thanks for the bank of italia supervision and the changes ahead. no italian bank had any problem during the crisis. >> reporter: when the ecb job came up, draghi was by far the number one choice. and like his predecessor, we can expect a firm commitment to price stability. >> let me be even blunter, no sovereign debt crisis nor any persistent bank could ever make the ecb to deter from the price stability as an objective. >> reporter: draghi brings his own ideas to the table. he wants fewer partial or temporary solutions, more clearly defined objectives. what's clearest of all is that he has a tough task ahead of him. max foster, cnn, london. referendum or no referendum? europe watchers continue to ponder greece's future in the european union. in a moment i'll be speaking with a legal expert to see if the euro zone exit 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right now but the question is, what if it did? if it did so, the transition wouldn't be quite as straightforward as you'd expect. no country in fact has ever left this group before. here's a look at how it could actually happen. a few months ago, the topic of a greek default was almost a dirty word among political circles. now world leaders and world markets are resigned to the fact that greece will have trouble paying off its obligations. the next big taboo to tackle is greece's future within the euro zone. will it decide to leave the monetary block and can it do so if it wants to? this is unchartered territory and fraught with difficulties and legally complicated which is why i've come to the london offices of everett wildman to talk with a specialist and finance partner dealing with these kind of issues. charles, you have a copy of the european treaties here. which are the offending paragraphs? >> i think article 128 of the treaty makes it very clear that all of the members of the euro zone have delegated to europe the right to issue a currency. greece didn't have the a right to issue its own currency anymore. it's irrevocably dedicated that to the union. >> you have article 50 here, which is in one of our copies of the treaties. i'll read it to our viewers. any member state may decide to withdraw from the union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. they're talking about the european union here, though, not the monetary union, the euro zone. >> certainly article 50 of the treaty on european union allows you to withdraw from the union as a whole but not just from monetary union. in order to withdraw from the single currency greece would have to withdraw from the union as a whole, which, of course, is a major step. article 49 allows it to re-apply but any such re-application is subject to the approval of all other member states. there can be no guarantee having left they'd be able to get back in at a later stage. >> out of all this framework we have, it's woefully inadequate. greece can't leave the euro zone of its own accord, is that right? and people can't expel it, either? >> in terms of the treaty, no, they can't force it to leave. of course, there are a lot of financial issues that can be brought to bear to impose pressure. but certainly in terms of the legal documentation there's no basis for member states to push greece out of the euro zone. >> so i suppose we need to add more stuff to documents like these. >> well, despite the length of this documentation, unfortunately, a departure from the euro zone is not covered, we're therefore working in something of a legal black hole. >> you know what that means. that means we could well see more pages added to a document like this. and that means more bedtime reading for people like me as the crisis continues. nina dos santos, cnn, london. i've also been writing a blog about whether greece can actually leave the euro. check it out at cnn pt kom cnn.com/business360. as always, we welcome your comments. the european stock markets are seeing a bit of weakness creeping in, especially the dax, which is down 0.1%. they opened about 29 minutes ago. that was largely on the back of optimism that greece may abandon a referendum on the debt deal, also some optimism with the ecb's surprise decision to cut rates yesterday. the italian prime minister silvio berlusconi is facing record low popularity numbers, also calls are mounting for his own resignation. if we look at the yield on the italian ten-year note that's been rising in today's session. currently trading at 6.2% at the moment. do remember that 7% is kind of the cutoff point at which economists generally agree that it is just too expensive for countries like this to sustain their massive debt loads. italy has a debt load of $2.5 trillion. that puts it into context. now, matthew chance joins us with the latest in rome about italy's financial woes. now, matthew, silvio berlusconi has been facing a lot of calls for him to step down. he's been facing those for years. could we really see him step down now? >> reporter: well, it's certainly a possibility. he's facing a no confidence vote, possibly as early as next week on his planned austerity cuts. we've seen over the past few days his majority in parliament potentially becoming a road, some members have defected from the other side. he's operating with a slim majority in the first place. there have also been extraordinary calls by -- messages rather from the italian president, saying he's been speaking to members of the opposition to see what their appetite is like for austerity reforms. as well as the banking federation in italy, saying that silvio berlusconi must push through these austerity measures now and step out of the way and allow somebody to move in to do what's necessary to save the italian economy. he has a no confidence vote possibly as early as next week. it will be a big test of his support in parliament. he's already survived, y