Greek Parliament Approves Austerity Bill Demanded By Bailout Creditors
Greek lawmakers voted overwhelmingly early Thursday July 16,2015 to approve a harsh austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors, despite significant dissent from members of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' own left-wing party.
The legislation was approved
with 229 votes in favor, 64 against and 6 abstentions — and won the
support of three pro-European opposition parties.
Among
Syriza's 38 dissenters were prominent party members including -
Energy
Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and former finance minister Yanis
Varoufakis
who many blame for exacerbating tensions with Greece's
creditors with his abrasive style during five months of tortured
negotiations.
The bill, which imposes sweeping tax hikes and spending cuts, fueled anger in the governing Syriza party and led to a revolt against Tsipras, who has insisted the deal forged after a marathon weekend eurozone summit was the best he could do to prevent Greece from catastrophically crashing out of the euro, Europe's joint currency
The post-midnight vote might not
pose an immediate threat to Tsipras' government, but it raised more
doubts over whether it could implement the harsh new austerity program
demanded by rescue lenders.
The
vote came after an anti-austerity demonstration by about 12,000
protesters outside parliament degenerated into violence as the debate
was getting underway Wednesday night July 15,2015
Riot police battled youths who
hurled petrol bombs for about an hour before the clashes died down.
Dissenters argued that Greeks
could not face any further cuts after six years of recession that saw
poverty and unemployment skyrocket and wiped out a quarter of the
country's economy.
Prime Minister AlexisTsipras
has been battling all week to persuade party hard-liners to back the
deal. He has acknowledged the agreement reached with creditors was far
from what he wanted and trampled on his pre-election promises of
repealing austerity, but insisted the alternative would have been far
worse for the country.
Thursday's vote came after more than two weeks of capital controls, with Greek banks and the stock exchange shut since June 29 and ATM cash withdrawals limited to 60 euros per day
The bill was the first step Greece must take in order to begin negotiations with creditors on a new bailout — its third in five years — of about 85 billion euros ($93 billion) in loans over three years.
Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, right, and Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos attend a parliament meeting in Athens, Thursday, July 16, 2015.
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