2015-07-23 09:42:00

Greek parliament passes second reforms package


(Vatican Radio) Greece’s Parliament passed a second set of austerity reforms in the early hours of Thursday morning, but at the cost of an almost certain breakup of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza party.

Listen to John Carr's report: 

The vote in the 300-seat chamber was 230 in favour of the package, 63 against and five abstentions. The bulk of the no votes, as in the vote on the first batch last Wednesday, came from the hard-left faction in Syriza which has picked a direct collision course with Tsipras.

The ringleader of the Syriza rebels, Parliament Speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou, on Wednesday night tried to delay the voting, calling the bailout measures a coup and an attack on Greek democracy. Incidentally, today is the 41st anniversary of the restoration of parliamentary democracy in Greece.

Tsipras on Thursday morning could thus chalk up another victory, but many commentators here in Athens argue that a complete Syriza split is now a mere matter of time. This could mean that over the next couple of months, Tsipras’s efforts to enact what’s needed for a hoped-for 86 billion-euro bailout will be fought every inch of the way.








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