Greece prepared additional austerity measures as Prime Minister George Papandreou on Friday vowed to ignore the political costs and take drastic measures to pull Greece out of a debt crisis threatening the stability of the euro zone.

Papandreou, speaking to Parliament afresh from a meeting with the EU economic inspectors, said, “Greece does not want other countries to pay for its debts but expects solidarity from its European peers as it struggled with worse than expected fiscal problems”.

“Unfortunately, history has fully confirmed our worst fears”, he said. "Our duty today is to forget about political costs and only think about the survival of our country ... Past policies make it necessary to proceed to brutal changes”.

“There is only one dilemma: Will we let the country go bankrupt or will we react? Will we let the speculators strangle us, or will we take our fate in our own hands?”, Papandreou said.

“We must do whatever we can now to address the immediate dangers today. Tomorrow it will be too late, and the consequences will be much direr”.

Papandreou, who will be visiting Berlin on March 5 at the invitation of Chancellor Angela Merkel, said the issue of reparations was not settled but he would not bring it up now.

"We have never given up on our claims", he said. "But this is not an issue that we will use for our convenience now, when we are in a weak position and called to put our house in order”.