The parliamentary vote on the latest austerity measures is set for lunchtime on Wednesday. MPs are being asked to back 28 billion Euros of tax hikes and spending cuts and privatisations set to raise a further 50 billion.
Like last week’s vote of confidence in the government, the vote is expected to be close because the government holds a majority of just five. Yet without a ‘yes’ vote, the IMF and EU won’t release 12 billion Euros designed to stop Greece defaulting on imminent debt repayments. And that would make Greece’s bankruptcy plain for all the world to see and spread this crisis across Europe’s banking system.
Even if the vote passes inside parliament, it won’t be without a fight outside. Everybody is predicting trouble. The sense I had today was that many Greeks are past caring about what they as a nation owe. If what they are being told to contribute through their own economic sacrifice will never be enough to erase the vast national debt, then why contribute beyond what austerity measures have been agreed already?
In other words, this week’s vote is not a “make or break” moment for Greece, because Greece is broken already.
The analogy is this: if you owe the bank £100 it is your problem. If you owe the bank £1 million, it is the bank’s problem.
When I was here a year ago I felt a sense of national shame at the state the country is in. Now shame seems to have been replaced by an almost bloody-minded determination not to accept any more pain – and a conviction that somebody else – politicians, tycoons, banks – should foot the bill.