Greece debt crisis: Eurozone deal laws backed by MPs
Source: BBC
Greek MPs have approved tough economic measures required to enable an 86bn eurozone bailout deal to go ahead.
The new legislation includes tax rises and an increase in the retirement age.
Ahead of the vote, protesters threw petrol bombs at police during an anti-austerity protest close to parliament, and police responded with tear gas.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had said he did not believe in the deal, but nonetheless urged MPs to agree to the measures.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33535205
Final Greek Parliament Vote
Yes: 228
No: 64
Present: 6
potone
(1,701 posts)There were no good choices, but as a Greek friend reminded me, they have lived through worse, and will survive this, too.
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)reorg
(3,317 posts)bloomberg.com
and explains why:
The Euro Summit statement (or Terms of Greeces Surrender as it will go down in history) follows, annotated by yours truly. The original text is untouched with my notes confined to square brackets (and in red). Read and weep
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)Easy to bitch when out of power.
When he was the Finance Minister, did he try to clean up their Byzantine tax system? - No.
Did he try to increase taxes on the wealthy? - No.
Did he propose taxing the shipping industry? - No.
Did he try to increase taxes on high end purchases like swimming pools and yachts? - No.
He did nothing but make the situation worse and now he complains when the EU forces some clean up of the system.
There was nothing stopping the Greeks from their own cleanup before being forced.
reorg
(3,317 posts)FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)"lets implement them immediately. And you relax the restrictions on liquidity from the ECB"
That's not unilaterally fixing your system. That's doing some fix with conditions from the EU.
My question was "Why not just fix the Greek broken system"?
None of this, I'll fix this now, and in return you do that crap.
He wasn't willing to fix his broken system unless there was some condition tied to it. No wonder the EU rejected that approach.
There was nothing stopping the Greeks from improving their system without having to be paid off or having a gun to their head.
They weren't willing.
reorg
(3,317 posts)http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/yanis-varoufakis-full-transcript-our-battle-save-greece
roamer65
(36,747 posts)All fiscal policy takes place at the state level. Some states could easily finance in dollars, while others would find it quite difficult. It would literally be like having to run each state in a foreign currency.
Welcome to the Eurozone. In the absence of a redistributative fiscal union, they now have to substitute "bailouts" of Eurozone sovereign governments.
The EU either forms a fiscal Union or the Euro fails. It's that simple.