Greek Parliament Approves Austerity Bill

But Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has publicly said he doesn’t fully believe in the agreement.

(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti). People buy fruit at a market in central Athens, Tuesday, July 14, 2015.

“It’s a hard deal, a deal for which only time will show if it is economically viable”, Finance Minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, told lawmakers during a debate on reforms.

It was agreed on condition that the Greece passed reforms on pension curbs and taxation increases by Wednesday.

Half of the No votes came from the governing Syriza party.

Around 50 protesters were arrested by police forces outside the Parliament, as protests turned violent close to midnight.

The European Central Bank has been keeping Greek banks afloat with emergency liquidity, but it could be forced to cut off that aid if Greece misses a huge debt repayment due on Monday.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won the backing of parliament in the early hours of Thursday for the stringent reform measures demanded by Greece’s creditors led by Germany, but was left weakened by a revolt in his left-wing Syriza party.

European governments are meanwhile divided over options to help Greece meet its short-term cash needs while it waits for the Eurozone bailout deal to be finalized, which will likely take at least four weeks.

Earlier, on Wednesday night, riot police used pepper spray and tear gas to fight back youths who were hurling Molotov cocktails and rocks at police during an anti-austerity protest in Athens.

In passing the bill, by 229 votes to 64, Greek MPs took the first step required to begin negotiations on a new bailout package worth 85 billion euros (£60bn).

Dissenters argued that Greeks could not face any more cuts after six years of recession that saw a sharp rise in poverty and unemployment.

To the surprise of many, more than 61 percent of those who cast ballots in the plebiscite voted to reject the troika proposal.

“I welcome the positive vote of the Greek parliament, but this is the easier part of the deal”, Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazimir said on his Twitter account. It was a decision which will be a burden for me for the rest of my life.

“I don’t know, nobody knows at the moment how this should be possible without a haircut”, he said. “Nothing was certain and nothing is”, he said as the debate kicked off. It defaulted on another International Monetary Fund debt payment on Monday.

The economy ministry’s secretary general, Manos Manousakis, also resigned over the measures.

Before Thursday’s vote in parliament, Varoufakis described the agreement that emerged this week from marathon talks in Brussels between Greece and its Eurogroup partners as “a new Versailles Treaty”. Banks were shut down June 29 and the finance ministry said they would remain closed through Thursday.