A significant minority of Merkel’s conservatives may vote against the 86 billion-euro ($94.84 billion) bailout, sending the government a warning that the latest package is its last chance to keep debt-ridden Greece in the 19-country euro zone.
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The German approval was never in doubt but in a similar vote last month, 60 members of Merkel’s conservative bloc voted against the bailout and some local media had speculated that even more could rebel this time as Germans are increasingly skeptical about giving Greece more money.
Any decision to change the way Greece’s bailout is supervised would rest with the national governments of eurozone members, however, and would need unanimous assent.
German MPs had to be recalled from their summer break for the emergency vote on the deal, which has already been approved by Greece’s parliament and eurozone finance ministers.
Mrs. Merkel’s Christian Democrat (CDU) party and its Bavarian CSU allies hold 311 seats in the 631-seat Bundestag. The first tranche will be €26bn – €10bn to recapitalise Greek banks and €16bn in several instalments, the first of which – €13bn – will be made by 20 August, when Greece must repay about €3.2bn to the European Central Bank (ECB). An official breakdown of how deputies voted was expected later Wednesday but much of the dissent seemed to come from the far-left Linke party rather than the conservatives.
The German and Dutch parliaments approved a third bailout for Greece yesterday after Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the country should get “a new start”, while in Athens the government agonised over whether to call a snap election. Germany’s was the largest contributor to the two previous Greek bailouts.
The bailout package passed the Greek parliament by a comfortable margin in early Friday, but many lawmakers from Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ leftist Syriza party voted against the deal.
A majority is still expected to pass the deal, as the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens want it to go ahead – but such a rebellion could weaken Ms Merkel’s authority nationally.
Rutte’s coalition government easily survived a no-confidence vote at the end of Wednesday’s debate.
Under the terms of the deal, Greece has to make further spending cuts and tax increases and implement big reforms to its economy.
Klaus-Peter Willsch, a key dissident, said: “We were promised the same thing so often but it was always broken”. But it now argues that Athens’s U-turn in accepting the tough strictures of its third bailout in five years meant it had earned the support of its creditors.
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However, he reiterated that a write-off of Greek debt, which International Monetary Fund said was necessary to resolve Greece’s crisis, was not possible as it was against the treaty of the eurozone.
