ATHENS: Greece has admitted it still faces a tough job in persuading the European Union and IMF to save it from bankruptcy even after parliament approved savage extra budget cuts, provoking a night of looting and burning in central Athens.
A suspicious EU has told leaders of the two parties left in the government of technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos to give written commitments by Wednesday that they will implement the pay, pension and job cuts after elections expected in April.
As parliament debated the austerity package on Sunday night, riot police fought running battles with protesters outside. By daybreak on Monday 93 buildings had been wrecked or seriously damaged in the city centre, some of them historic monuments.
The written undertakings are not the only demand euro zone finance ministers have made before they decide whether to approve a 130 billion euro bailout, part of which Athens must get if it is not to default chaotically when 14.5 billion euros in debt repayments fall due on March 20.
Weary of broken Greek promises, the Eurogroup ministers have also told Athens to say how it will fill a 325 million euro gap in its plan for an extra 3.3 billion euros in savings this year before they meet in Brussels on Wednesday.
Government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis accepted that Athens had work to do. "The Eurogroup on Wednesday will obviously be a tough one but the government believes the political leaders’ positions show we are determined to continue," he said.
But comments by Antonis Samaras, who leads the conservative New Democracy party, are unlikely to reassure Europe. He ordered lawmakers from his party, the smaller of the two in the coalition, to vote for the deal but simultaneously made clear he wanted it changed once Greece had avoided bankruptcy.
"I am calling you to vote for the new loan agreement because I want to avoid falling into the abyss, to restore stability, so that we can have the possibility tomorrow to negotiate and change the policy that is being imposed upon us today," he told parliament.
Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2012
Copyright Reuters, 2012
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