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Greek Parliament OK's Harsh New Austerity Plan

Following a day of peaceful protests followed by violent confrontations between anarchists and riot police right outside, the Greek Parliament, in a dramatic post-midnight vote on Nov. 8, narrowly approved a $17.45 billion spending cut and tax hike plan that imposes additional sweeping austerity measures on workers, pensioners and the poor.
Prime Minister Antonis SamarasĀ  warned that unless the package was approved that the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) would not release a long-delayed $38.8 billion loan installment and that the government would run out of money on Nov. 16 and be unable to pay workers or pensioners.
After a bitter debate, the plan passed by a vote of 153-128 in the 300-member Parliament, with 18 voting present and one absent. The coalition government controlled 177 votes and Samaras, also the New Democracy leader, and one of his partners, PASOK Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, immediately ejected from their parties those who voted no or present. The third coalition leader, Fotis Kouvelis, didn’t take a stand on the measures and voted present.
The plans touches most every sector of life in Greece, from reduced salaries to public workers and deep pension cuts, raises the retirement age from 65 to 67, eliminates what was left of holiday bonuses, wipes out 83 percent of lump sum payments due retirees when they leave work, makes cuts in the so-called special salaries of judges, diplomats, military personnel, university professors and other professors, begins the opening of closed professions that enjoyed a near-monopoly, and puts 2,000 public workers on a year-long layoff of 75 percent of pay before likely being fired.
It didn’t come easy. Samaras is leading an uneasy coalition that includes his otherwise bitter rivals, Venizelos – who backed the package – and Kouvelis, who had joined the government in support of austerity he had previously opposed, but backed away over harsh changes to labor laws that would take away workers rights, reduce their severance pay and give them less warning time before being fired.
More than 2 1/2 years of austerity measures designed to insure that banks and investors are repaid have largely backfired, worsening a five-year recession, put nearly two million people out of work, closed 68,000 businesses and shrunk the economy by 7 percent. Tax hikes have failed to yield projected increases in revenues and the Finance Ministry reported that more beleaguered Greeks can’t pay doubled income and property taxes. Unpaid taxes for this year have reached 10.17 billion euros ($12.98 billion,) but that 6.3 billion euros ($8 billion) wasn’t paid in August and September alone, when new tax bills were sent.
The vote came after a two-day general strike called by the countryā€™s two largest labor unions that halted much public transportation, left schools, banks and government offices shut, and rubbish piled up on the streets. As many as 100,000 protesters, some chanting, ā€œFight! Theyā€™re drinking our blood!ā€ took to the streets of downtown Athens and marched peacefully most of the afternoon before an evening rain storm came and the battles began between anarchists and police near the Parliament.
The protesters fired waves of Molotov Cocktails and police responded with a barrage of stun grenades, tear gas and water cannon spray. The violence broke out after protesters tried to break through a barricade to enter the Parliament building. The crowd included a motley collection of workers, students, the elderly, labor union members and backers of parties opposed to the measures, including the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) and the Communists.
Samaras, who reneged on campaign promises made ahead of the June 17 election to resist more austerity measures, said he had no choice because the Troika would have pulled the plug on additional aid and Greece would have been forced out of the 17 countries of the Eurozone that use the euro, back to the ancient drachma and into what he said would be collapse and chaos. He vowed the austerity measures would be the last, echoing previous governments which made the same promise only to break it.

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