Inside Parliament, Prime Minister George A. Papandreou made a last-minute appeal to win over wavering lawmakers to endorse the package. Without its passage, Greece’s foreign lenders have said they will not release the funds, which the debt-ridden country will need to meet expenses.
During a heated debate in Parliament, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said that if the new austerity measures, including changes to collective-bargaining agreements and the firing of public workers, were not approved, “the country will be exposed to the risk of a nonrational development” — an apparent reference to a debt default — “and will once again become the scapegoat for Europe’s historic, political and institutional shortcomings.”
The climate in Athens was extremely tense with demonstrations turning into violent street skirmishes that went on for hours, well into the afternoon. Some demonstrators hurled firebombs not at the police but into the crowd. The scene outside Parliament looked like a war zone, with members of the Communist-backed labor union, PAME, and anarchists confronting each other with stones and firebombs while police stood by.
Athens police said some 50,000 demonstrators had poured into the central Syntagma Square overlooked by the Parliament building. Greek media reported that one person died of a heart attack hours after being hit on the head with a stone, and another 16 people were injured, three seriously, but there was no official confirmation.
On Wednesday evening, as garbage fires smoldered in the streets, the Greek Parliament approved the new package in a first round of voting, with all 154 governing party legislators in Greece’s 300-seat Parliament voting in favor. But the measures will not become law until Thursday’s second vote.
The package is expected to be approved, even over the reluctance of the governing Socialist Party, which helped build up the welfare state it is now charged with dismantling. The ballot is all the more important as Greece awaits two critical developments beyond its borders.
European Union leaders are to meet Sunday for a final decision on the release of the next, $11 billion installment of aid to Greece, part of a $150 billion bailout engineered last year. They will also be looking at a much broader European rescue designed to protect the bloc should Greece default. And, within days, a so-called troika made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund is to issue its newest report on the Greek crisis.
A draft report prepared by the commission, in “liaison” with the E.C.B., recommended the next installment of financial support to Athens be released as soon as possible after the latest austerity measures are enacted. On Thursday, Reuters quoted unidentified European officials as saying that the I.M.F. believes European assessments are too optimistic and wants to await a clearer outlook before signing off on the next installment.
“The vote will boost our negotiating position; it will give us strength for the E.U. summit,” Prime Minister Papandreou said this week. The main goal for Greece, he added, is “to stay in the euro zone.”
On Wednesday, tens of thousands of people turned out to protest on the first day of a two-day general strike. Although the demonstration was organized by leading labor unions, everyone from trash collectors, teachers, retired army officers, lawyers and even judges walked off the job to protest the government-imposed wage cuts and tax increases that they say are squeezing the debt-ridden country into penury.
“There’s no precedent for this,” said Anastasia Dotsi, 70, a retired bank worker who said anger had driven her out to protest. After two years of austerity measures, “we have been crushed as a people.”
She said her son and daughter, who both work in the private sector, had not been paid in months and were struggling to pay their mortgages and support their families.
On Thursday, the strike showed some signs of easing as air traffic controllers returned to work and flights resumed. But workers in most other sectors continued the stoppage.
Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=200af364db4f77e5c0a204f85b2106e7
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