ATHENS: Athens police fired teargas at protesters who threw petrol bombs at two luxury hotels in the central Syntagma square outside parliament on Wednesday as Greek protests against government austerity measures escalated.
Hours earlier, parliament had approved reforms and spending cuts that are a condition of a 110 billion euro ($150 billion) EU/IMF bailout intended to dig Greece out of its debt crisis. Striking public and private sector workers had already grounded flights, shut down schools and paralysed public transport. As an anti-austerity march of about 20,000 people reached parliament, about 200 leftists attacked former conservative minister Kostis Hatzidakis with stones and sticks, shouting: “Thieves! Shame on you!” Reuters witnesses said his face was covered in blood as he took shelter in a building. With a comfortable parliamentary majority, and future bailout instalments at stake, the ruling socialists are unlikely to reverse course.
The 300-seat house voted into law measures that cut wages in state-owned bus and railway companies and weakened the power of collective bargaining to allow company-level deals to prevail.
Before the protests escalated, Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary at the civil servants’ union ADEDY, told Reuters: “We need to send the government a message that we will not accept measures that lead us only to poverty and unemployment.
“… We are warning of more action after the holidays. We will not yield, we will prevail.” Prime Minister George Papandreou expelled a deputy from his parliamentary team for failing to back the government in the vote. But his party still commands a comfortable 156 votes, with more belt-tightening ahead in the 2011 budget next week. Ships remained docked at ports, hospitals were working on skeleton staff and ministries shut down as civil servants and private sector workers stayed away.
With public transport crippled, major roads to the centre of Athens looked like huge parking lots as motorists struggled to get to work. With journalists joining the strike, there was no news on TV or radio stations. “It is good that people take to the streets. They have taken away our rights. Patience has its limits, we have kids and loans to pay,” said bank employee George Mihalopoulos, 57, as he waited for a protest rally to start. Workers were also due to rally against austerity in other countries on Wednesday, including Spain and Belgium, ahead of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
