While Greece is on its way to another stopgap loan, Tsipras, who relied on pro-European opposition legislators to win the vote, now faces members of his own party convinced he betrayed election pledges to reject austerity measures.
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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was Saturday battling a major revolt amongst members of his radical-left party who oppose the third huge bailout for the crisis-hit country.
This raises the possibility that the bailout deal could be delayed and Greece issued a bridging loan to tide it over – it has a 3.2 billion euro payment due to the European Central Bank on August 20.
But the vote will test the strength of a rebellion by anti-austerity lawmakers of Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party, which could raise pressure on him to call snap elections as early as September.
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said a meeting of his eurozone peers Friday had to make up its mind about approving a third debt bailout for Greece.
The bill on the rescue deal passed just in time for Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos to head to Brussels to meet his counterparts from the 19-country currency union in the hope of getting their seal of approval as well.
“Faced with an ultimatum for Greece’s temporary exit from the euro, we assumed our responsibility towards the Greek people to stay alive and keep on fighting, rather than choose suicide”.
Germany’s parliament will decide on whether to approve the new bailout deal on Wednesday.
Another Syriza MP, Panagiotis Lafazanis, told Tsipras: “I feel ashamed for you”.
Makis Voridis, an MP with the opposition New Democracy, said his party would not support the PM in a confidence vote, Reuters news agency reported.
The deal means new loans of up to €86bn will be made available over the next three years.
Finance ministers of the euro single currency group have approved the first €26 billion of a vast new bailout package to help rebuild Greece’s economy.
Europe must “provide significant debt relief, well beyond what has been considered so far”, she said.
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Assuming approval by the German and other Parliaments, €13 billion should be in Athens this Thursday to pay pressing bills and a further €10 billion will be set aside at the European Stability Mechanism, earmarked to bolster Greek banks’ capital. However, the bloc is keen to have the International Monetary Fund, whose imprimatur is prized in financial markets, closely involved in managing the Greek programme and has agreed to look at easing terms, such as by lengthening repayment deadlines, once a first review of Greek compliance with conditions is completed in October.
