German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, who last month floated the idea of a temporary Greek Exit, or Grexit, from the eurozone, changed his tune and called on lawmakers to vote in favor of the third bailout.
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The overwhelming majority of the German parliament also voted in favour of the aid programme, despite Chancellor Angela Merkel also failing to rally more support from her conservative bloc.
The Bundestag approved the Greek bailout with 454 lawmakers voting “yes”, 113 voting “no” and 18 abstaining.
There remains three billion euros in the first tranche, which will be disbursed in September or October provided certain reforms are carried out, according to officials.
The bailout’s fate in the Bundestag was never in doubt because Germany’s two largest parties, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats, govern in coalition.
Later on Wednesday, the Dutch parliament is scheduled to vote on the Greek bailout.
“The pace of arrivals has been steadily increasing in recent weeks, with more refugees and migrants having arrived in Greece during July than during the whole of last year”, UN associate spokesperson Vannina Maestracci said at a daily news briefing.
On Tuesday, the Greek government said it had agreed the sale of 14 regional airports to German transport company Fraport Slentel for €1.23bn.
Dutch legislators debated the bail-out later on Wednesday after Germany, Spain, Austria and Estonia supported the plan.
“There is no guarantee that this all will work and doubts are allowed, given the experiences over the past months and years“, he said.
Germany is the largest single contributor to the bailouts and many in Schaeuble’s party remain skeptical.
A senior lawmaker, Makis Voridis, from the opposition New Democracy said his party would vote against Tsipras’s coalition, raising the odds it would be toppled.
While the approval was virtually guaranteed given the dominance of Merkel’s left-right “grand coalition,”the key question was whether the chancellor would face damaging dissent within her own camp”.
Euro zone finance ministers have approved Greece’s 86 billion-euro deal.
But Greece is still not out of the woods, warned Capital Economics, as it will have to pass regular reviews to be eligible for future aid payments and its requirement to run ever rising primary budget surpluses is based on growth forecasts that seem “far too optimistic”.
In the end, 63 conservative rebels cast “No” ballots and three abstained, marking only a slight increase from a vote last month approving the start of negotiations on the package.
Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the EU and worldwide Monetary Fund would be able to find a compromise in the form of lower interest rates and longer repayment terms.
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While accepting the risks, he said the Greek parliament has already approved most of the measures, and as such it “would be irresponsible not to seize this chance for a new beginning in Greece“.
