German Chancellor Angela Merkel will ask lawmakers to back an 86 billion euro ($95.5 billion) bailout for Greece at a special session of parliament on Wednesday despite uncertainty about whether the global Monetary Fund (IMF) is on board.
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The new agreement passed the Greek assembly a few hours before a Euro Group meeting, which will examine the disbursement of the first tranche of aid so that Greece can repay a 3.2-billion-euro debt to the European Central Bank on Thursday.
Approval of a third bail-out deal came at a high price for the government, which lost its constitutional majority after just 118 of its own MPs backed the new rescue programme. “We no longer have a democracy… but a eurozone dictatorship”, prominent party member and former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis said before the vote. “It addresses the main challenges, both on reaching sound public finances to return to growth, but also structural policy frameworks to enhance competitiveness. The creditors have agreed to consider the issue only after a review in October of the government’s implementation of its side of the deal“. “Many Europeans have worked for this deal”, he said. How they are handled will be key. Why should it? Every effort is being made to prevent Greece from defaulting on its monstrous €340 billion debt involving some new austerity measure designed to stifle the economy, which in turn only guarantees Greece’s inability to make its debt repayments.
Even so, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose leftist Syriza party was deeply split in the vote, fell short of the 120 votes he would need to survive a censure motion, “leading to speculation he would call a confidence vote next week and snap elections as early as next month”, the Guardian reports.
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That stance that has scored points with voters at home but raised hackles in other euro zone states, whose governments have throughout the crisis urged the citizens of Europe’s richest country to help kick-start the region’s recovery by spending more freely.
