Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is attempting to rally his party to gain enough support to pass the second round of key reforms to guarantee a bailout from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The rebellion in Parliament is coming from Tsipras’ own Syriza party, who were elected on a platform of not giving in to European demands for more austerity measures. Tsipras fought the austerity measures for a significant amount of time before admitting some measures needed to be taken to help Greece turn around their economy.
“We are making an effort to have fewer dissenters,” Health Minister Panagiotis Kouroumplis told Greek TV.
The first vote took place on austerity measures while this second vote is more about procedural operations such as a code of civil protection aimed at speeding up court cases; the adoption of an EU directive to bolster banks and protect savers’ deposits of less than €100,000 and the introduction of rules that would see bank shareholders and creditors – not taxpayers – cover costs of a failed bank.
The issues that caused most division such as phasing out early retirement were removed from the second round of voting and move to an August vote.
The vote is expected to pass thanks to support from the opposition parties in the Parliament.