GREECE faces savage austerity measures after MPs voted to accept a new eurozone bailout deal yesterday.
Following a marathon overnight debate, the parliament voted by 222 to 64 to back the proposal from international creditors for an €85 billion (£60bn) loan.

The latest legislation includes increases in personal, company and shipping taxes, reductions in some pensions, the abolition of tax breaks for some vulnerable groups and deep spending cuts, including to the armed forces.

The money will go towards recapitalising banks and preventing the country defaulting on repayments of the two previous bailouts.

But, as with two previous EU-dictated Bills — preconditions for bailout negotiations — the Syriza government had to rely on pro-austerity opposition parties to win the vote.

More than 40 of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s 149 MPs rebelled, accusing him of betraying the mandate twice given to him by voters to reject creditors’ demands for more austerity measures on top of those that have already crippled the Greek economy.

Former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis said: “I feel ashamed for you. We no longer have a democracy, but a eurozone dictatorship.”

But Mr Tsipras defended his government’s acceptance of the eurozone proposals despite the July referendum on the matter, in which 60 per cent of voters rejected an earlier and apparently better offer.

“We took a painful decision of responsibility and took a step back,” the premier said.

Following the vote, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos flew to Brussels to seek approval from the eurogroup, the committee of his eurozone counterparts.

“I think that at the end of today we will have a result,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said as he arrived for the talks.

“If we don’t find a solution, we will have to do bridge financing,” he said, referring to a short-term loan to enable Greece to make its next debt repayment on August 20.

The IMF, meanwhile, still considers Greece’s debt to be unsustainable and said the country needed debt relief of some sort.

The fund has said it will decide on whether to participate in the new bailout once it has been set up.
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