Greece’s Parliament early this morning voted in favour of an austerity plan demanded by international creditors to unlock a bailout aimed at saving the debt-ridden country from bankruptcy.
According to an AFP count, a majority of lawmakers approved the budget package even as protests by tens of thousands of Greeks opposed to the new austerity measures turned violent outside the Parliament building.
Greek police battled protesters in the capital Athens as burning buildings and tear gas set a tense backdrop for the parliamentary vote on the new austerity plan aimed at staving off bankruptcy.
However, lawmakers defied the 100,000-strong turnout in Athens and Thessaloniki and approved the measures requested by Greece’s international creditors for a multi-billion rescue fund to be unlocked.
“Around 10 buildings have been set ablaze, most of them using petrol bombs,” Nikolaos Tsongas, a spokesman for the fire brigade, said.
Fire engines were initially unable to intervene because the size of the protest and the chaos that filled the streets around the Parliament building, where lawmakers debated the austerity plan ahead of the late-night vote.
When protesters wearing gas masks tried to break through the riot police cordon around Parliament, the standoff broke out into running battles, with tear gas canisters and rocks flying in opposite directions.
An estimated 80,000 protesters gathered in Athens, police said, matching the biggest turnouts achieved against earlier austerity packages last year, while around 20,000 also demonstrated in the second city of Thessaloniki. Yesterday’s protesters included trade unionists, youths with shaven heads waving Greek flags, communist activists and left-wing sympathisers, many of them equipped with gas masks.
Many families also joined in the rally, although the square was quickly cleared after the first round of tear gas was fired, before filling up again.
They denounced what they describe as blackmail being imposed by the international troika of the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank in return for the bailout.
“It’s not easy to live in these conditions,” said 49-year-old engineer Andreas Maragoudakis. “By 2020 we will be the Germans’ slaves.”
Civil engineer Anastasia Papadaki, 27 said “the measures are not the solutions to the problem as they will not bring growth. It’s just the international community blackmailing us.”
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told Parliament it had to back the government-approved plan to unlock a €130 billion rescue fund from the EU and the IMF, or Greece would be forced to default.
“The situation is very clear. Tonight... before the markets open the Greek Parliament must send the message that our nation can and will (support the debt deal),” Mr Venizelos said. “Today we must understand, and persuade Greek citizens, that when you have to choose between bad and worse, you will choose the bad to avoid the worst,” he added.
The latest austerity measures are expected to heap more hardship on ordinary Greeks already suffering from the crisis. They involve a 22-per cent cut in the minimum wage (32 per cent for workers under 25); deregulating the labour market to make it easier to lay off workers; and a package of tax and pension reforms.
Developments in Greece come as the governments from fellow EU member states are becoming ever more impatient.
On Friday Finance Minister Tonio Fenech stressed that the Greeks would get no more money from Malta unless the government was convinced the aid was being used to carry out painful but necessary market reforms.
“While I understand the sentiment of people protesting over hefty wage reductions they also have to ask themselves whether it is right to expect European people, who earn lower wages, to continue bailing them out at all costs,” Mr Fenech said.