by Magda Panoutsopoulou and Bahattin Gonultas
ANKARA
The Greek parliament early on Saturday approved the government's new bailout proposals.
The bill was passed by a large majority -- 251 for and 32 against, with 8 MPs voting 'present,' and 9 absent from the vote.
The passage is another step forward to reaching an agreement with creditors. On Saturday, the Eurogroup will consider the Greek proposals, which have already been examined by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Comission.
The opposition largely voted for the bill, the government did have to rely on opposition votes to get it through.
The bill, entitled, “Negotiation and Achievement of a Loan Agreement with the European Stability Mechanism,” passed after almost three hours of discussion.
President of the Parliament Zoi Kostantopoulou, Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and Deputy Labour Minister Dimitris Stratoulis, however, all voted present.
The prime minister before the voting session noted that, in the referendum, “Greeks didn’t give a mandate for a rift, but to strengthen the negotiating effort," and he added that “from now on, there’s a mine field and I don’t have the right to ignore it or hide it from the Greek people,” he continued,
Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said in a speech during the parliamentary debate “We did well in the referendum for two reasons: first, because the Greek people trust us and secondly, because the Greek people know we are working in favor of the majority.”
He added that it is important the country’s creditors are not asking for additional recessionary measures and wondered: “are they overall recessionary measures?” To this he answered that “it depends on what will happen with the debt and whether “we will escape from the Grexit rhetoric.”
