Greece passes new austerity budget

Greece faces new financial worries, despite passing a 2013 budget that embraces new austerity.

Listen to John Blears’ report:


It was business as usual in the streets of Athens this morning, hours after the Greek parliament endorsed the 2013 budget after a tumultuous debate.

But the quiet was deceptive, as Samaras is now worried that the next dose of bailout aid from Greece’s creditors, to the tune of 31.5 billion euros, might not come on time – undermining his own promises to the Greek electorate.

Samaras is off to Brussels tomorrow to start lobbying European leaders for moral support as well as the much-needed money, which will keep Greece paying its bills until the end of the year at least. His finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, is also heading off to European capitals today.

After last night’s midnight vote on the austerity budget, Samaras said it was another step on the road to eventual Greek recovery. He just wishes Greece’s creditors were equally optimistic. But opinion polls here in Athens show the main opposition party, the leftwing Syriza, to have the biggest following in the country. The rise of Syriza is a fairly faithful image of the growing public anger at unceasing austerity, soaring unemployment, growing poverty and seemingly limitless corruption among the political elites.

The International Monetary Fund favours the idea of a partial write-off of the huge Greek debt, which stands at an unsustainable 190 percent of gdp. Germany, on the other hand, is reluctant to help pay that price. Part of Samaras’s task will be to convince the creditors to have a bit more patience until economic reforms are in place and growth resumes.

But as the polls in Greece show, not to mention the constant strikes, fewer and fewer of Greeks have the patience to see if he is right.