An omnibus bill containing the latest round of austerity measures demanded by creditors, along with various bench-marked reforms, was passed by Parliament late Thursday evening with exactly the number of MPs - 153 - backing the leftist-rightist Greek coalition government.
A total of 281 deputies out of the 300 in Greece's Parliament attended the debate and voted in the process, with all 19 absent MPs belonging to the opposition. Deputies from the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party (Chryssi Avgi) were banned from the debate, resulting in their refusal to vote on the bill's articles.
Every MP from the radical leftist SYRIZA party, the coalition leader, as well as from the junior coalition party, the small rightist-populist Independent Greeks' (AN.EL) party, attended the session and voted.
The latest austerity package will translate into nearly five billion euros worth of pension cuts and higher taxes over the 2019-2020 period, rising to just more than 7.1 billion euros if 2021 is included.
In a bid to "sugarcoat" the austerity package for ruling party MPs and SYRIZA's grassroots, the bill includes countervailing measures if fiscal targets are met and if creditors acquiescence to their implementation after 2019.
That year, in fact, is when regular elections are scheduled.
Opposition MPs only voted in favor of two articles in the more than 900-page omnibus bill, namely, a reduction of the VAT rate for agricultural supplies, which will fall to 13 percent, and a harmonization of tax rates (downwards) for serving Parliament deputies.
