Greece passes crucial 2013 austerity budget

Supporters from the Independent Greeks party hold Greek flags as Presidential guards performs the changing of the guards ceremony outside the Greek parliament during an anti- austerity rally in central Athens on Sunday Nov. 11, 2012. / AP Photo

ATHENS, GreeceGreek lawmakers approved the country's 2013 austerity budget early Monday, an essential step in Greece's efforts to persuade its international creditors to unblock a vital rescue loan installment without which the country will go bankrupt.

The budget passed by a 167-128 vote in the 300-member Parliament. It came days after a separate bill of deep spending cuts and tax hikes for the next two years squeaked through with a narrow majority following severe disagreements among the three parties in the governing coalition.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras pledged that the spending cuts will be the last Greeks have to endure.

"Just four days ago, we voted the most sweeping reforms ever in Greece," he said. "The sacrifices (in the earlier bill and the budget) will be the last. Provided, of course, we implement all we have legislated. "

"Greece has done what it was asked to do and now is the time for the creditors to make good on their commitments," he stressed.

• Greek vote helps markets calm after turmoil
• Greece a step nearer to getting bailout cash
• Anti-austerity Greek protests get violent

Athens says that with the passage of the two bills, the next loan installment, worth euro31.5 billion, should be disbursed. Without it, the government has said it will run out of cash on Friday, when euro5 billion worth of treasury bills mature.

Finance ministers from the 17-nation eurozone are meeting in Brussels later Monday, with Greece high on the agenda. However, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has indicated it is unlikely that the ministers will decide on the disbursement at that meeting.

"We all ... want to help Greece, but we won't be put under pressure," Schaeuble told the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

Schaeuble said the so-called troika of debt inspectors likely won't deliver their report on Greece's reform program by Monday. The creditors also want to see what the debt inspectors have to say about Greece's debt sustainability.

But speaking minutes before the vote, Samaras pledged the bailout funds would be disbursed "on time."

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras also stressed the precariousness of Greece's cash reserves, with the treasury bills due on Friday.

"Without the help of the European Central Bank, the refunding of these treasury bills from the banking system will lead the private sector to complete suffocation," Stournaras said.

Disbursement of the next installment is essential "because the state's available funds are marginal, although better than expected because the 2012 budget is being executed better than expected," he said, adding that the funds are needed to pay salaries and pensions, as well as for the import of medicines, fuel and food.

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Greece's latest budget cuts met with violent protests

Hours before the vote, 15,000 people converged outside Parliament in a peaceful demonstration. The crowd was far smaller than the 80,000-strong crowd which protested last Wednesday's austerity bill vote. That demonstration degenerated into violent clashes between riot police and hundreds of protesters.

Greece is mired in a deep recession heading into its sixth year, with more than a quarter of Greeks unemployed. Battered by a mountain of debt and a gaping budget deficit, Greece has been relying on international bailout loans from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund since May 2010.

[mjvwsr]

Greece passes crucial 2013 austerity budget

When will we?

[sooner_schooner]

What's wrong, are people in Greece not paying their "fair share"?

[drunk_and_blowing_chunks]

Yes indeed - it is obviously a revenue problem, not a spending problem. :)

[joesapper]

Another socialist success !

The best thing the cops over there can do is sweep the streets of rocks and any other thing that can be thrown , but hey , maybe the cops will be not getting their wages either , O gee that I LEFT that out as the cops are also having wages & pensions cut .

A little more than three weeks ago the Doctors & Nurses were also protesting in the streets .

Cheers to the Socialist of the last eleven years !

[honestpatriot]

Unfortunately you are misinformed; the center-right governed Greece from 2004 to 2009 -- and it was a Socialist Party prime minister who in 2009 revealed the budget manipulations of the preceding government and the true extent of deficits.

[jsargent100]

There are no rocks or stones in the street. They break parts off the buildings and break the tiles on the pavements. Perhaps they should make people demonstrate in padded cells then they wouldn't have anything to throw. Of-course it's easy to make comment if you come from a country that never demonstrates against anything and the word "liberal" is synonymous with being a communist.

[quincytodd]

What the Greeks need to do is to default and then pull out of the Eurozone altogether. As long as there is a cursed Eurozone, the problems over there only grow worse and the sooner the people realize it, the better!

[hypnotoad72]

Did they offshore too many jobs or let the market, which dictates how much work is valued, devalue so much work that their government is now drowning in the bathtub?

"What the market will bear"... it's the worst form of bear market...

[askagain]

Perhaps it is as simple as spending money the government couldn't afford.