The Greek government is confident the Greek parliament will pass an austerity plan next week needed to unlock crucial EU-IMF aid to avoid default, a government spokesman said yesterday.
“We are totally confident,” government spokesman Ilias Mosialos said.
Parliament is scheduled to vote on the austerity plan on Wednesday and Thursday.
“These are extremely crucial votes. We believe lawmakers in parliament’s majority will act responsibly,” he added.
On Tuesday, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government narrowly won a vote of confidence in parliament by 155 votes to 143, while protests raged outside.
To avoid defaulting, Athens needs to receive by middle of next month a 12 billion euro (US$17 billion) tranche of eurozone and IMF loans from last year’s bailout.
However, in order to do so, Greece needs to pass legislation that will impose 28.4 billion euros in spending cuts and force the country to raise 50 billion euros through privatizations by 2015.
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said on a local television channel: “We need to cross this first step to reach the next,” involving the “possibility to negotiate” a second bailout plan.
The government was negotiating on Friday on a new bailout worth about 110 billion euros, roughly the same size as the first rescue plan agreed to last year.
Venizelos called on the main conservative opposition party, whose leader Antonis Samaras has refused to back the austerity measures, to support the government.
Papandreou has only a five-seat majority, with already some waverers in his Socialist Party, and he faces a general strike called by Greek unions starting on Tuesday.
The minister also rejected the growing perception in Greece that the EU has no choice but to save the country to rescue the euro.
If Greece refuses to take disciplinary action over its finances, “the EU would have created a mechanism of self-protection ... which would have forced Greece to leave the eurozone, but we choose to stay,” he added.
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