Police fire tear gas as protests turn violent
Parliament is due to vote today and tomorrow on a package of spending cuts, tax increases and privatisations as part of a massive bailout aimed at averting the eurozone’s first debt default.
Labour unions launched a 48-hour strike to protest the measures and more than 5,000 police were deployed to the centre of the capital to deal with the protests, with most attention focused on Syntagma Square in front of the parliament.
The rally was initially peaceful but by early afternoon, hundreds of youths, many wearing gas masks and scarves covering their faces, hurled masonry chipped off buildings in the square at riot police who responded with tear gas.
Officials said four police officers were injured by flying stones and one person was stabbed during fights between rival groups of demonstrators. Three others were injured while a number of people were treated with breathing difficulties.
Police said 18 people were detained and three formal arrest charges were laid.
“The situation that the workers are going through is tragic and we are near poverty levels,” said Spyros Linardopoulos, a protester with the PAME union blockading the port of Piraeus. “The government has declared war and to this war we will answer back with war.”
Violence continued and protesters set fire to two communications trucks with mobile telecoms transmitters which they had apparently mistaken for TV trucks and sprayed with slogans attacking the media and banks.
The scale of the strike bought large parts of the Greek economy to a standstill. Everyone from doctors and ambulance drivers to casino workers and even actors at a state-funded theatre were joining the strike or holding work stoppages for several hours.
An ongoing strike by electricity company workers kept up rolling blackouts across Greece. Not far from the violent protest, cafes and ice cream vendors popular with tourists used portable generators to keep the power on.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled or rescheduled as air traffic controllers walked off the job. Strikes by public transport workers snarled traffic across the capital and left tourists stranded around Piraeus.
As a crowd initially estimated at more than 20,000 thinned out, clouds of white smoke swirled above the square and police with shields and riot helmets stood by, occasionally launching charges to disperse a harder core of mainly young demonstrators.
Transport, schools and other services as well as many private businesses were shut as a result of the strike called by ADEDY, the union representing half a million civil servants and GSEE, which represents two million private sector workers.
Earlier, protesters had marched through the capital chanting slogans, banging drums and carrying banners attacking the terms of the bailout which many Greeks feel imposes harsh penalties on ordinary pensioners and workers while sparing the rich.
“The measures are for the good of the banks not for the good of workers,” said Yannis Tsounis, 38, a municipal worker. “Europe must not see us as pariahs. We are beginning to feel as not being a part of Europe.”
Greece is in the grip of its worst recession since the 1970s, with youth unemployment at more than 40% and public finances shattered by a debt equivalent to some 150% of annual economic output.
Deep in deficit and unable to borrow on financial markets, it depends on international support to keep going. A default would spread contagion around the 17-nation single currency area and cause a deep shock to the global economy.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos called on lawmakers to back the measures in two votes today and tomorrow, saying it was vital to convince Greece’s creditors that it had a plan and that the austerity measures could be implemented.
“The government is running out of time and so is the opposition,” he told parliament. “We are handling our country’s history right now and nobody can play with that.”
The European Union’s top economic official Olli Rehn issued a stark warning to Greek lawmakers that if they did not vote for the measures, the result would be immediate default.
The conservative opposition has refused to back the plan but although the socialists have a majority, with 155 deputies in the 300-seat house, the final outcome is unclear. More serious problems may lie ahead however when the government has to implement the programme, which will slash public sector jobs, shut down state-owned companies and attempt to take on endemic tax evasion.
Today: Parliament votes on a €28 billion, five-year austerity package of tax hikes and spending cuts agreed with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The session starts at 7am Irish time and is expected to conclude sometime in the afternoon with a vote.
Tomorrow: Parliament votes on a separate implementation law spelling out the fiscal measures in more detail — potentially more difficult as the laws will cover individual privatisations, tax steps and spending cuts.
Sunday, July 3: Deadline set by the EU for the Greek parliament to pass the austerity laws. Eurozone finance ministers hold an extraordinary meeting on this date and have said the laws must be passed by then for Greece to obtain its next, €12 billion tranche of bailout loans. Greece has said it will be unable to pay its debts by mid-July if it does not get the money.
Early July: Eurozone finance ministers have said they will define by early July “the main parameters” of a new international bailout plan for Greece, which will supplement the €110bn bailout launched in May last year. The new package will include additional official loans and a voluntary rollover of Greek debt by private investors.
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