Greece set for unpopular bailout
Source: Agencies |
February 13, 2012, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
GREEK lawmakers looked set to agree to a deeply unpopular bailout deal to avert what Prime Minister Lucas Papademos warned would be "economic chaos," and Germany demanded Athens dramatically change its ways to stay in the euro.
The austerity bill sets out 3.3 billion euros (US$4.35 billion) in wage, pension and job cuts as the price of a 130-billion-euro rescue package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund - Greece's second since 2010.
Greece needs the funds before March 20 to meet debt repayments of 14.5 billion euros and the bill has stirred anger on the streets and turmoil in the coalition government.
Addressing the nation late on Saturday, Papademos warned that failure to back the bill would mean a disorderly default and "set the country on a disastrous adventure."
"It would create conditions of uncontrolled economic chaos and social explosion," he said.
"The country would be drawn into a vortex of recession, instability, unemployment and protracted misery and this would sooner or later lead the country out of the euro."
Greece's Communist Party accused him of "lying and scaremongering."
But eurozone paymaster Germany said Europe needed action, not words.
"The promises from Greece aren't enough for us any more," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview published yesterday in Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
German opinion polls show most Germans are willing to help, Schaeuble said, "but it's important to say that it cannot be a bottomless pit.
The austerity bill sets out 3.3 billion euros (US$4.35 billion) in wage, pension and job cuts as the price of a 130-billion-euro rescue package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund - Greece's second since 2010.
Greece needs the funds before March 20 to meet debt repayments of 14.5 billion euros and the bill has stirred anger on the streets and turmoil in the coalition government.
Addressing the nation late on Saturday, Papademos warned that failure to back the bill would mean a disorderly default and "set the country on a disastrous adventure."
"It would create conditions of uncontrolled economic chaos and social explosion," he said.
"The country would be drawn into a vortex of recession, instability, unemployment and protracted misery and this would sooner or later lead the country out of the euro."
Greece's Communist Party accused him of "lying and scaremongering."
But eurozone paymaster Germany said Europe needed action, not words.
"The promises from Greece aren't enough for us any more," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview published yesterday in Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
German opinion polls show most Germans are willing to help, Schaeuble said, "but it's important to say that it cannot be a bottomless pit.
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