Tsipras Wins Bailout Vote as ECB Weighs Emergency Funding (2)
2015-07-16 03:06:26.657 GMT
(Updates with government statement under Varoufakis
Opposes subheadline. For more Greece news and data, click here.)
By Eleni Chrepa, Nikos Chrysoloras and Matthew Campbell
(Bloomberg) -- Greek lawmakers passed a bailout agreement
that keeps the country in the euro for now, shifting attention
to the European Central Bank as it weighs whether to pump more
money into the country’s hobbled financial system.
After more than four hours of debate stretching into the
early hours of Thursday, 229 members of the 300-seat parliament
in Athens approved new austerity measures that are a
precondition of as much as 86 billion euros ($94 billion) in
aid. Among those who opposed the bill were 32 members of Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras’s Coalition of the Radical Left, or
Syriza, a sign the premier may have lost his majority.
The vote puts the onus on the ECB and other euro-region
governments to deploy more emergency funds that would help Greek
banks gradually re-open and repair the country’s battered
coffers. The ECB’s Governing Council meets in Frankfurt later on
Thursday and Germany’s parliament will vote Friday on whether to
start bailout negotiations to help Greece cover its debts and
pay pensions and salaries.
Accepting the agreement with creditors “was a decision
which will be a burden for me for the rest of my life,” Finance
Minister Euclid Tsakalotos told lawmakers at the start of the
debate. “I don’t know if we did the right thing. But I know we
did something to which there was no alternative.”
Bridge Financing
The euro fell 0.14 percent to $1.0935 as of 11:04 a.m. in
Hong Kong. Asian stocks rose.
Finding a way to open banks and allow normal commerce to
resume will be the Greek government’s first priority. In its
Thursday meeting, the ECB will discuss whether to increase the
level of so-called emergency liquidity assistance it provides to
Greek lenders, which have been shut for more than two weeks to
stem withdrawals.
Greece also needs to secure bridge financing to cover
immediate needs that include making a 3.5 billion-euro payment
to the ECB due on July 20. The European Union has proposed a
facility worth 7 billion euros to tide the country over until
implementation of the full bailout begins. Euro-area finance
ministers are due to hold a conference call on Greece on
Thursday morning.
Europe’s most indebted country came closer than ever to
being forced out of the single currency this month after Tsipras
stunned European leaders by calling a snap referendum on
spending cuts and tax rises demanded by creditors. Despite a
clear majority of Greeks voting “no,” he was forced to
capitulate to an even more onerous package that political chiefs
said was the only way for Greece to remain in the euro.
Varoufakis Opposes
Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister who clashed
repeatedly with Wolfgang Schaeuble of Germany, was among 38
members of Syriza’s 149-member parliamentary caucus who either
voted “no” or abstained.
The result of today’s vote “constitutes a serious division
of Syriza,” Greek government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis
said in a statement. Tspiras’s priority now is to conclude an
agreement with Greece’s creditors, he said.
The level of opposition suggests Tsipras may now be forced
to rule with a minority government, relying on opposition
lawmakers to pass legislation.
“A minority administration will prove unsustainable,
making a national unity government likely,” Eurasia Group
analyst Mujtaba Rahman said in a note to clients. Such a
government, comprising all the major parties, “may prove to be
the only way possible” to secure bailout funds, Rahman said.
As debate began on the bailout bill, police fired tear gas
outside parliament to disperse anti-austerity protesters,
highlighting the challenges Tsipras faces selling further
spending cuts to a country already deep in recession. About
13,000 people gathered to protest in central Athens, police
spokesman Takis Papapetropoulos said, although by about 9:45
p.m. most had been dispersed by riot officers.
Tsipras, who was elected in January pledging to end
austerity and forge a new deal with creditors, didn’t rise to
speak in support of the bailout bill in parliament until the
early hours of Thursday morning.
“I had a choice of a deal I did not agree with, or a
disorderly default, or Schaeuble’s choice of a euro exit,”
Tsipras said. “I’m the last person to beautify an agreement
with which I disagree in many of its points.”
For Related News and Information:
Tsipras Must Rebuild Government After Wave of Bailout Defections
IMF Says Greece Needs Deeper Debt Relief Than Europe Considering
Greek Bailout Rests on Asset Sale Plan That Already Failed
Top Stories:TOP<GO>
Most-read Greek news: MNI GRE 1W <GO>
--With assistance from Antonis Galanopoulos in Athens.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Eleni Chrepa in Athens at +30-210-741-9034 or
echrepa@bloomberg.net;
Nikos Chrysoloras in Athens at +30-210-7419022 or
nchrysoloras@bloomberg.net;
Matthew Campbell in Athens at +44-20-3525-8684 or
mcampbell39@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Alan Crawford at +49-30-70010-6237 or
acrawford6@bloomberg.net;
John Fraher at +44-20-3525-2058 or
jfraher@bloomberg.net
Brendan Scott
2015-07-16 03:06:26.657 GMT
(Updates with government statement under Varoufakis
Opposes subheadline. For more Greece news and data, click here.)
By Eleni Chrepa, Nikos Chrysoloras and Matthew Campbell
(Bloomberg) -- Greek lawmakers passed a bailout agreement
that keeps the country in the euro for now, shifting attention
to the European Central Bank as it weighs whether to pump more
money into the country’s hobbled financial system.
After more than four hours of debate stretching into the
early hours of Thursday, 229 members of the 300-seat parliament
in Athens approved new austerity measures that are a
precondition of as much as 86 billion euros ($94 billion) in
aid. Among those who opposed the bill were 32 members of Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras’s Coalition of the Radical Left, or
Syriza, a sign the premier may have lost his majority.
The vote puts the onus on the ECB and other euro-region
governments to deploy more emergency funds that would help Greek
banks gradually re-open and repair the country’s battered
coffers. The ECB’s Governing Council meets in Frankfurt later on
Thursday and Germany’s parliament will vote Friday on whether to
start bailout negotiations to help Greece cover its debts and
pay pensions and salaries.
Accepting the agreement with creditors “was a decision
which will be a burden for me for the rest of my life,” Finance
Minister Euclid Tsakalotos told lawmakers at the start of the
debate. “I don’t know if we did the right thing. But I know we
did something to which there was no alternative.”
Bridge Financing
The euro fell 0.14 percent to $1.0935 as of 11:04 a.m. in
Hong Kong. Asian stocks rose.
Finding a way to open banks and allow normal commerce to
resume will be the Greek government’s first priority. In its
Thursday meeting, the ECB will discuss whether to increase the
level of so-called emergency liquidity assistance it provides to
Greek lenders, which have been shut for more than two weeks to
stem withdrawals.
Greece also needs to secure bridge financing to cover
immediate needs that include making a 3.5 billion-euro payment
to the ECB due on July 20. The European Union has proposed a
facility worth 7 billion euros to tide the country over until
implementation of the full bailout begins. Euro-area finance
ministers are due to hold a conference call on Greece on
Thursday morning.
Europe’s most indebted country came closer than ever to
being forced out of the single currency this month after Tsipras
stunned European leaders by calling a snap referendum on
spending cuts and tax rises demanded by creditors. Despite a
clear majority of Greeks voting “no,” he was forced to
capitulate to an even more onerous package that political chiefs
said was the only way for Greece to remain in the euro.
Varoufakis Opposes
Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister who clashed
repeatedly with Wolfgang Schaeuble of Germany, was among 38
members of Syriza’s 149-member parliamentary caucus who either
voted “no” or abstained.
The result of today’s vote “constitutes a serious division
of Syriza,” Greek government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis
said in a statement. Tspiras’s priority now is to conclude an
agreement with Greece’s creditors, he said.
The level of opposition suggests Tsipras may now be forced
to rule with a minority government, relying on opposition
lawmakers to pass legislation.
“A minority administration will prove unsustainable,
making a national unity government likely,” Eurasia Group
analyst Mujtaba Rahman said in a note to clients. Such a
government, comprising all the major parties, “may prove to be
the only way possible” to secure bailout funds, Rahman said.
As debate began on the bailout bill, police fired tear gas
outside parliament to disperse anti-austerity protesters,
highlighting the challenges Tsipras faces selling further
spending cuts to a country already deep in recession. About
13,000 people gathered to protest in central Athens, police
spokesman Takis Papapetropoulos said, although by about 9:45
p.m. most had been dispersed by riot officers.
Tsipras, who was elected in January pledging to end
austerity and forge a new deal with creditors, didn’t rise to
speak in support of the bailout bill in parliament until the
early hours of Thursday morning.
“I had a choice of a deal I did not agree with, or a
disorderly default, or Schaeuble’s choice of a euro exit,”
Tsipras said. “I’m the last person to beautify an agreement
with which I disagree in many of its points.”
For Related News and Information:
Tsipras Must Rebuild Government After Wave of Bailout Defections
IMF Says Greece Needs Deeper Debt Relief Than Europe Considering
Greek Bailout Rests on Asset Sale Plan That Already Failed
Top Stories:TOP<GO>
Most-read Greek news: MNI GRE 1W <GO>
--With assistance from Antonis Galanopoulos in Athens.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Eleni Chrepa in Athens at +30-210-741-9034 or
echrepa@bloomberg.net;
Nikos Chrysoloras in Athens at +30-210-7419022 or
nchrysoloras@bloomberg.net;
Matthew Campbell in Athens at +44-20-3525-8684 or
mcampbell39@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Alan Crawford at +49-30-70010-6237 or
acrawford6@bloomberg.net;
John Fraher at +44-20-3525-2058 or
jfraher@bloomberg.net
Brendan Scott
