Riots spread as Greek lawmakers OK debt bill

ATHENS, Greece?? The Greek parliament approved on Monday a deeply unpopular austerity bill to secure a second bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund and avoid a messy default.

The vote occurred after 100,000 demonstrators marched to the parliament and buildings were burned down in central Athens. Following the vote, black-masked protesters created a wall of fire with petrol bombs and set fire to cinemas, cafes, shops and banks.

Fifty police officers and at least 55 protesters were hospitalized. Forty-five suspected rioters were arrested; a further 40 were detained.

Following the vote to cut $4.35 billion ? which means axing one in five civil service jobs and slashing the minimum wage by more than a fifth ? violence spread to other Greek towns and cities, including on the holiday islands of Corfu and Crete.

"I've had it! I can't take it any more. There's no point in living in this country any more," said a man walking through his smashed and looted optician store.

Since May 2010, Greece has survived on a ?110 billion ($145 billion) bailout from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund. When that proved insufficient, a new rescue loan package worth a further ?130 billion ($171 billion) was decided ? combined with a massive bond swap deal that will write off half the country's privately held debt.

For both deals to materialize, Greece must persuade its deeply skeptical creditors that it has the will and ability to implement spending cuts and public sector reforms that will end years of fiscal profligacy and tame gaping budget deficits.

Before the vote on Sunday, Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos urged lawmakers to back the bailout reforms, saying the "wrong decision" in the bailout vote would lead to catastrophic default and exit from the euro.

Lawmakers voted 199-74 in favor of the drastic cutbacks. Following the vote, the two Greek parties supporting the government of technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos expelled 43 deputies for failing to back the austerity bill.?

The conservative New Democracy party said it had expelled 21 of its 83 deputies. The Socialist PASOK party expelled about 20 of its 153 lawmakers.

Athens ablaze
Before the vote on Sunday, the air in Syntagma Square outside parliament was thick with tear gas as riot police fought running battles with youths who smashed marble balustrades and hurled stones and petrol bombs.

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Terrified Greeks and tourists fled the rock-strewn streets and the clouds of stinging gas, cramming into hotel lobbies for shelter as lines of riot police struggled to contain the mayhem.

State television reported that violence had also broken out in Heraklion, capital of the tourist island of Crete, and the towns of Volos and Agrinio in central Greece.

Protesters set bonfires in front of parliament and dozens of riot police formed lines to try to deter them from storming the parliament. Clouds of tear gas drifted across the square in front of the parliament. Many in the crowd wore gas masks to protect themselves from the clouds of tear gas drifting across the square in front of the parliament, while others carried Greek flags and banners.

Riot police fired dozens of tear gas volleys at rioting youths, who attacked them with firebombs, fireworks and chunks of marble smashed off the fronts of luxury hotels, banks and department stores.

Streets were strewn with stones, smashed glass and burnt wreckage, while terrified passers-by sought refuge in hotel lounges and cafeterias.

Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis said rioters tried to storm the city hall building but were repelled.

"Once again, the city is being used as a lever to try to destabilize the country," he said.

'Issue of survival'
Prime Minister Papademos' government ? an unlikely coalition of the majority Socialists and their main foes, New Democracy ? was expected to carry the austerity vote, even by a narrow margin.

Combined, they control 236 of Parliament's 300 seats, although at least 20 lawmakers from both main parties said they would not back the new private sector wage cuts, pension reductions and civil service layoffs dictated by the draft austerity program.

"There are very few such moments in the history of a nation," Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said. "Our country has an acute issue of survival."

"The question is not whether some salaries and pensions will be curtailed, but whether we will be able to pay even these reduced wages and pensions," he added. "When you have to choose between bad and worse, you will pick what is bad to avoid what is worse."

The new cutbacks, which follow two years of harsh income losses and tax hikes ? amid a deep recession and record high unemployment ? have been demanded by Greece's bailout creditors in return for a new batch of vital rescue loans.

"By Wednesday, finance ministers from eurozone countries must finally approve the financing and support program for Greece," Venizelos said. "If that does not happen, and it is not at all certain that it will happen unless we raise to the occasion, then we will not be able by Friday, Feb. 17, to officially start the bond exchange process."

"We won't be in time to carry out the bond swap by March 5, and we won't be in time to address the problem of major bond issues that must be paid from March 14-20," he said. "If that doesn't happen, the country will go bankrupt."

Pressure from Europe
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted as telling the Welt am Sonntag newspaper Sunday that Greece "cannot be a bottomless pit."

"That's why the Greeks must finally put a bottom in," he added. "Then we can put something in too."

Highlighting previous promises he said weren't kept, Schaeuble said "that is why Greece's promises aren't enough for us any more," according to the report.

Asked whether Greece has a long-term future in the eurozone, Germany's vice chancellor told ARD television "that is now in the hands of the Greeks alone."

Philipp Roesler said in the interview broadcast that what matters is not just Greece making pledges.

"We want ... the Greek parliament also to approve laws and, as far as possible, take the first steps to implement what has been agreed," he said.

"Only when that happens, only then can there be new aid ? and Greece urgently needs that," said Roesler, who is also Germany's economy minister.

Roesler acknowledged that Greece faces "difficult decisions" but stressed that Germany wants it to be able to get out of trouble.

"It is not enough just to give financial aid ? they must tackle the second cause of the crisis, the lack of economic competitiveness," he said. "For that, they need ... massive structural reforms. Otherwise Greece will not get out of the crisis."

Introducing the legislation Sunday, Socialist lawmaker Sofia Yiannaka said the intense pressure from Greece's EU partners to pass the measures was the result of delays in implementing already agreed reforms.

"The delays have our imprint. We should not blame foreigners for them," she said.

"We have finally found out that you have to pay back what you have borrowed ... We used to say 'poor state, but rich citizens' because we tolerated tax evasion for populist reasons. Is this the country we want?" Yiannaka added.

Leftist parties and the small rightist LAOS ? a former junior coalition partner ? opposed the the new austerity bill.

"You are not trying to save Greece, but a handful of industrialists," Communist Party spokesman Thanassis Pafilis said. "And you disgracefully blame the struggling people who created the wealth we have. You are trying to send them back to the Middle Ages. We will not allow it."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46358793/ns/world_news-europe/

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