Brussels, 08/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - It was with a sigh of relief on Thursday 8 November that politicians in Brussels welcomed the news that on Wednesday evening, the Greek parliament had voted through the new €18 billion austerity package for 2013-2015 by 153 to128 and 18 abstentions. Six parliamentarians from the socialist PASOK party and one from the Christian right New Democracy party (the party of the prime minister, Antonis Samaras) were expelled from their parliamentary groups for rejecting the package. The demcoratic left party DIMAR opposes the labour market measures and therefore abstained. The coalition is holding together but it was a close call because 151 votes were required for an absolute majority vote.
Simon O'Connor, spokesman for Euro Commissioner Olli Rehn, said that the European Commission sees the vote as “an important step in the right direction” but the vote on Sunday by the Greek parliament on the draft budget would be crucial to pave the way for Eurogroup being able to make progress in its talks on Monday 12 November. Samaras said he was confident that the country's parliament would endorse the budget. The Commission says agreement still needs to be found on two key elements - assessing the sustainability of the Greek debt and future financing needs. O'Connor hoped the troika of lenders (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) would be able to finish its work over the next few days so that the next instalment of aid for Greece could be disbursed.
German scepticism. German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble swept aside any idea that the eurozone might decide on Monday to release the next aid instalment, welcoming the Greek parliament's vote but saying it was unlikely that the disbursement decision would be made for a few weeks yet. The president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, said the vote was a “very important step” while Hannes Swoboda, head of the S&D party at the European Parliament, regretted the severity of some of the austerity measures, “that will have a very tough impact on the Greek population.”
On Thursday, the Greek statistics body announced that unemployment had reached 25.4% of the working population in August 2012. The World Bank has responded favourably to the request from Greece to receive aid not in the form of a donation, but rather as technical assistance paid for by the EU. (EL/transl.fl)