The vote came after Tsipras urged Parliament to approve reforms including a pension overhaul, tax hikes and privatisations. Photo / Getty Images
The vote came after Tsipras urged Parliament to approve reforms including a pension overhaul, tax hikes and privatisations. Photo / Getty Images
Greece's Parliament has approved a reform package to save the country from financial collapse. Sources in Brussels suggest Athens' latest plan could form the basis of a massive new bailout worth 74 billion ($122.8b).
The package was backed by 251 politicians, giving Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras a mandate to continuelast-ditch talks with the country's creditors before a European Union summit today.
The vote came after Tsipras urged Parliament to approve reforms including a pension overhaul, tax hikes and privatisations similar to those creditors offered last month, to keep the nation "alive" and in the EU.
The measures, submitted in Brussels on Thursday, sparked criticism from hardline members of his radical left party Syriza, about 10 of whom abstained from or voted against them. Opposition parties, however, helped push them through.
"It is a choice of high national responsibility, we have a national duty to keep our people alive. We will succeed not only to stay in Europe but to live as equal peers with dignity and pride," Tsipras said before the vote.
Parliament's backing came hours after an EU source in Brussels said the country's latest debt proposals were positive enough to secure a new bailout worth 74 billion.
Greece submitted plans on Thursday designed to woo fresh cash from its international creditors.
They concede several key points that Tsipras' ruling coalition, and Greek voters, had previously fiercely opposed.
