Greek PM warns austerity needed to avert 'catastrophe'
Lucas Papademos - Photo EC
(ATHENS) - Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos on Saturday urged parliament to pass painful austerity measures demanded by creditors, warning of "economic and social catastrophe" if it doesn't.
The legislature in crisis-weary Greece will be asked Sunday to approve budget cuts demanded by the EU and IMF in return for a 130-billion-euro ($171 billion) rescue package that Athens needs to avoid default in March.
Hours after thousands of protestors, watched over by riot police, demonstrated in Athens against the further belt tightening, Papademos insisted that the alternative, a default, was far worse.
"The Greek parliament is asked to take a historic responsibility, examine and authorize the new economic programme of Greece, the pre-condition for financing the country over the coming years," he said.
He acknowledged that the new round of cuts would heap further hardship on Greece, where unemployment is over 20 percent -- but the alternative, a default on the country's massive debt, was much worse, he warned.
"The social cost of this programme is limited in comparison with the economic and social catastrophe that would follow if we did not adopt it," he said in a nationally televised address.
And he dismissed as demagoguery talk of choosing a default which, he said, would be an economic disaster, provoke social unrest and lead to Greece's exit from the euro.
Just hours earlier more than 3,500 people, according to the march organisers, streamed to Syntagma Square in Athens on a second day of protests and a general strike.
Police said another 4,000 demonstrated in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
Another rally has been called in Athens for Sunday, outside the parliament as deputies consider the cuts.
Six members of the coalition government -- four on the far-right and two socialists -- on Friday resigned in protest at the austerity measures.
Plans to slash the minimum wage and make layoffs easier have sparked deep anger in a country where more than a million people -- over 20 percent of the workforce -- are already unemployed.
Leaders of the socialist PASOK and centre-right New Democracy parties on Saturday urged their MPs to vote in favour of the deal.
"The new programme is difficult and harsh, but it is our only hope for avoiding extreme situations," former prime minister and PASOK leader George Papandreou said.
New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras told his deputies: "We can begin stabilising with the debt deal because we will remove 85 billion euros (of debt) from our shoulders."
Greece's eurozone partners this week insisted that Athens push through the extra austerity measures if it wanted to secure the release of further loans under the 130-billion euro bailout pending since October.
Greece needs the money to stave off bankruptcy on March 20, when it must repay nearly 14.5 billion euros in maturing debt.
To get that money, deputies must approve three separate measures Sunday.
They have to approve moves to recapitalise Greek banks; the signing of the the eurozone bailout; and a bond swap with private creditors designed to wipe out around 100 billion euros from Greece's 350 billion euro debt.
At least five socialist and conservative deputies have already come out against the cuts. In theory however, the two senior coalition partners still have enough support to pass the measures.
Eurozone finance ministers on Thursday delayed a decision on a new bailout, giving Greek officials less than a week to meet the tough conditions in exchange for fresh aid.
The ministers want Greek lawmakers to formally approve the measures, which include additional structural spending cuts of 325 million euros for 2012.
They also want a written pledge from coalition leaders that they will implement the reforms, Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker said. If those conditions are met, the Eurogroup would meet again on Wednesday.
Two German ministers at the weekend stepped up the pressure on Greece.
"The promises of Greece are not enough for us," Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaueble says in an interview with Welt Am Sonntag, due out Sunday, saying Athens still had to implement elements of the previous austerity programme.
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle was equally blunt.
"The only thing that counts now are actions," he told the news weekly Der Spiegel. It was not enough to adopt austerity measures, he said: they also had to be implemented. "Not just any time -- but now."
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