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Greek Parliament Ratifies List of Prior Actions to Secure Bailout Funds

parliamentThe third Greek bailout survived its first Greek parliamentary test since its inception.
In the early hours of Saturday morning the Greek Parliament legislated a list of prior actions that international creditors had demanded be ratification in exchange for the disbursement of additional bailout funds.
The legislation was passed with 154 votes in favor coming from the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government MPs. All the MPs of the opposition parties opposed the bill as well as Nikos Nikolopulos, an MP of the government coalition party ANEL.
This vote signifies a more united SYRIZA parliamentary line, very different from the summer’s prior action votes whereby certain SYRIZA MPs voted against the proposed legislation and the coalition government relied on the votes of the political opposition, who supported the bills to legislate them.
This latest vote means that Greece should be receiving an additional 2 billion euros of bailout funds soon. The review of the bailout will also begin and its completion is set to trigger another important event for the government, namely the commencement of a discussion about the Greek debt.
Prior to the vote, the leaders of the eight political parties took the stand and expressed their views on the proposed legislation.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told the Greek MPs that big tax evasion cases that were set to be dismissed by the end of this year would be investigated for another year based on modifications that the government proposed.
“If some people thought that because time is almost up they will evade tax control in big tax cases, or in cases of notoriety, they are mistaken,” he said.
Conservative leader Vangelis Meimarakis accused the government of clobbering the country with taxes that he said would prolong a recession. However, Tsipras told opposition lawmakers the legislation should come as no surprise.
“There are no new measures here. There are difficult measures that we all knew about,” he said. “You already knew them when you voted in favour of the July 13 (debt) accord” with the European Union.
In response to the austerity measures and reforms that are included in the prior actions, the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) and the Civil Servants Confederation (ADEDY) held demonstrations in the centre of Athens.

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