The full story...

Greek parliament votes to accept bailout, with three quarters in favour

Peter Ryan reported this story on Thursday, July 16, 2015 08:00:32

UPDATE: This story was broadcast in the Perth edition of AM after the Greek parliament cast its vote and is the most complete coverage of the issue.

ASHLEY HALL: Greece's Parliament has voted to accept the latest bailout deal.

After marathon negotiations, around about three-quarters of Greece's politicians voted for the deal that promises more pain for the country.

Their other option was a probable slide out of the eurozone.

Business Editor Peter Ryan has been watching developments throughout the morning.

Peter, how decisive has the vote been?

PETER RYAN: Well, Ashley, this has been much more decisive than most people had expected given the high level of angst and pain that all these deliberations have created throughout Greece and the eurozone and the tremors right around the world but right now the vote appears to be overwhelming - 229 votes for yes, 64 to no.

That's at last check.

What was interesting before this vote took place was that the Golden Dawn Party and the Communist Party had demanded that this vote take place by name - so it wasn't a simple show of hands. It was every member of the Greek Parliament being named.

So, more austerity for Greece, even more than before, more belt-tightening. Things are going to get much harder before they get better.

And prime minister Alexis Tsipras made a final and very vocal appeal to the Greek Parliament just a few minutes before the vote.

ALEXIS TSIPRAS (translated): You understand that this is not the country that can tap the markets. If you don't have a very high growth rate and at the same time, if you don't have the necessary debt reconstruction that really, it's no use lying about this.

I know that the measures, that the structural measures that we're bringing are harsh but- and I know that they're not going to help the Greek economy, but I also say that I understand that they have to implement them and perhaps that's the difference between you and I.

ASHLEY HALL: That's the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras speaking through a translator addressing the Greek Parliament just before the bailout vote, and I'm joined by our business editor, Peter Ryan.

Peter, just before the vote began there was the release of an IMF (International Monetary Fund) report that was quite damning about this bailout package. What was the IMF's concerns and how big an impact do you think it had?

PETER RYAN: Well, this report from the International Monetary Fund had actually been strategically leaked yesterday. This morning the IMF put it out officially.

But what it is saying is that despite this deal, it says that Greece really needs to be subject to debt forgiveness - in other words the creditors, Greece's creditors need to take a haircut on this debt simply because there is so much debt there that Greece really has no chance of being able to pay it back.

Now this appears to have actually undermined what the Troika eurozone leaders and the European central bank and the European Commission had been pushing for - but it appears that it may also have been designed to really make Germany feel quite difficult and to undermine Germany's case, given that Germany has said that there is no way that they are going to be taking a haircut on any of this debt.

ASHLEY HALL: The chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly said that they won't be taking any more of a cut, will they?

PETER RYAN: That's right and so the International Monetary Fund, while they're very good at playing hard ball on this as well - right throughout this whole crisis, they've been throwing it right back to Germany and saying really, what Greece has been given at the moment, that 85 billion euros, $A130 billion, is pretty much enough money to pay off the minimum monthly on the credit card rather than deal with the whole debt.

ASHLEY HALL: And Peter Ryan, explain to us what measures they've voted on here. This wasn't the full bailout deal, was it?

PETER RYAN: No, well these are actually measures that are much tougher than were knocked back in the referendum and some of them are cutting pensions, raising the retirement age, selling off state assets, privatising ferries - even selling a few islands.

So it's very tough and things are going to get a lot worse in Greece before they get better.

ASHLEY HALL: That's our business editor, Peter Ryan.