Greek Parliament backs bailout plan

Wolfgang Schaeuble, finance minister of its biggest creditor Germany and a veteran stickler for the EU’s fiscal rules, said negotiations would be “exceptionally difficult”.

People, right, wait to enter a bank for limited services as others use an ATM with a graffiti above it reading “We vote No” in Athens, Friday, July 3, 2015.

As the government inched closer to a deal to ensure Greece isn’t jettisoned out of Europe’s joint currency, some Greeks were furious at the proposed measures.

The German Finance Ministry declined to comment on the report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Other ministers arriving for the Eurogroup session spoke of a fundamental lack of trust after years of broken Greek promises and six months of erratic and provocative behaviour by the radical leftist Tsipras government.

“It will be quite a hard meeting still”, said Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is leading the talks.

The Greek parliament voted through proposals that Tsipras hopes will be a basis for negotiations, including amending VAT, pensions and tax – concessions Tsipras was previously not willing to make and a plan including measures rejected in last Sunday’s referendum in Greece.

Finland’s state broadcaster YLE reported that the Finnish government had told parliament’s influential Grand Committee on Saturday it did not consider the Greek proposal sufficient to start negotiations on a new loan. Helsinki’s stance has hardened since the populist Finns Party joined a right-wing coalition that took office in May. From the halls of Parliament to streets filled with people who have suffered through five years of severe economic hardship, Greeks were struggling to process the news, gird themselves for further budget cuts and assess what they had gotten for their efforts to stand against the European orthodoxy.

A third bailout for Greece is estimated to cost some 80 billion euros ($89 billion).

The influx is creating “an unprecedented refugee emergency” at a time when Greece is financially unable to cope, said William Spindler, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The package was backed by 251 out of the 300 politicians in a late-night sitting giving Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras a mandate to continue last-ditch talks with the country’s creditors this weekend.

Bank closures in Greece have been extended until Monday and Greeks are limited to withdrawing €60 per day after the imposition of cash controls.

“I see a huge problem with DSA (debt sustainability analysis), so long-term sustainability of the Greek debt“.

One official said some funding could come from Greece raising money on debt markets.

Evangelos Venizelos, the ex- leader of Greece’s Socialist Party, even asked Mr. Tsipras’s finance minister whether he would, in effect, apologize for past statements suggesting that the previous government had been incompetent.

Merkel has made clear she does not want to see a “Grexit” that could disrupt a fragile European economic recovery and undermine a supposedly irreversible union. However, she faces stiff opposition among her own conservatives.

Euro zone leaders, including Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, are due to meet on Sunday, either to endorse a decision to open talks on a new bailout or if, along with other European Union leaders, to take steps to contain the fallout from a looming Greek bankruptcy.

Officials from the creditor institutions gave the proposals a cautious welcome, with global Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde foreseeing “a lot more progress”.

But in a sign of potential trouble brewing, 10 members on the government benches either abstained or voted against the proposals and another seven were absent.

However, some of his own MPs withheld their support in protest at austerity measures contained in the new package.

“The government is being totally blackmailed”, Constantopoulou said.

Experts said it is unlikely, even in the event of a deal, that limits on cash withdrawals and transfers will be lifted completely for some time.

Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said it “would build trust” if the Greeks legislate as soon as next week on some of the reform plans, especially after Tsipras’s majority was “eroded” by the parliament vote.