Greek lawmakers finally voted through the country’s third international bailout yesterday after a bitter all-night debate, hours before European finance ministers were due to meet to approve the deal with Germany digging in its heels.
As Eurogroup ministers gathered in Brussels to rubberstamp the 85 billion euro (US$95 billion) rescue plan, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras warned that any German bid to palm off his debt-ridden country with a bridging loan rather than a new deal would be “a return to a crisis without end.”
Tsipras appealed to other EU countries to reject the alternative solution that Germany was suggesting, which he said would only prolong the agony.
Photo: Bloomberg
“It is what certain people have been looking for systematically, and we have a responsibility to avert that, not to facilitate it,” the embattled prime minister told the parliament after a day and night of heated debate on drastic austerity measures that have deeply divided his SYRIZA party.
Athens needs to unlock bailout funds before a 3.4 billion euro repayment to the European Central Bank falls due on Aug. 20.
A majority of 222 lawmakers approved the 400-page draft deal with 64 voting against, including 40 from Tsipras’ own leftist party ranks.
Outspoken former Greek minister of finance Yanis Varoufakis and other senior SYRIZA cadres refused to support the three-year deal, which the prime minister has previously warned would force him to call early elections.
Tsipras said that failure to ratify the deal would enable Germany to push forward its proposal for a bridging loan.
However, Berlin, Europe’s paymaster, insists it needs further clarifications from Greece before giving the deal the nod.
Facing down critics in his own party, Tsipras told members of parliament: “I prefer compromise to the heroic dance of Zalongo” — a reference to a notorious 19th-century mass suicide in northern Greece when a group of women and children jumped to their deaths rather than submit to the Ottoman governor Ali Pasha.
His government “had taken on the responsibility to continue the fight, rather than commit suicide and then go running to other international forums saying it wasn’t fair that we had to kill ourselves,” he added.
Tsipras had said there was no choice but to agree to the painful cuts and sell-offs demanded by its international creditors “to assure the country’s ability to survive and keep on fighting.”
The vote was originally set for late Thursday, but was held up by procedural wrangling from hardline Greek Parliamentary Speaker Zoe Constantopoulou, who termed the bailout unconstitutional.
“Every corner and beauty of Greece is being sold... The government is giving the keys to the troika along with sovereignty and national assets,” she said, referring to the country’s creditors — the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF.
The highly charged clashes on the deal began in parliamentary committees on Thursday, with debate raging on for nine hours through the night in the full chamber.
Now the drama moves to Brussels where eurozone finance ministers are expected to issue their verdict on the draft deal reached by Athens and officials from the creditors after weeks of negotiations.
German Deputy Minister of Finance Jens Spahn sounded a note of caution about the prospects of a final deal there, saying Berlin and Paris still had questions on Greece’s plans to privatize parts of its economy.
The Greek government had “come a long way,” showing a “high degree of willingness to reform,” Spahn said.
However, “we need more details in some areas. That is what we need to talk about — by the way we have a joint proposal from France and Germany,” he added, without giving details.
German Bundestag President Norbert Lammert has said that in the event of a thumbs-up from Greek lawmakers and the Eurogroup of finance ministers, the German parliament will convene an extraordinary session on Tuesday or Wednesday to vote on the bailout.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia