Times
June 22, 2011
For Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, winning the vote of confidence in Parliament was the easy part. His ruling Socialists hold a slim majority, and last week's cabinet reshuffle elevated party hardliners to keep rogue deputies in line. The vote, held just after midnight on Wednesday morning, passed 155 to 143.
Now, back to the hard part: Papandreou's embattled government resumes the deeply unpopular austerity program that's supposed to save Greece from defaulting on its massive national debt. Euro-zone leaders say the government must approve €28 billion of cuts, tax hikes, financial reforms and privatization in a June 28 vote before Greece receives the latest installment of bailout loans to allow it to keep paying off its debts.
Since last year, when Greece imposed a program of deep budget cuts and tax hikes in exchange for more than $150 billion in bailout loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF), austerity has increasingly become a dirty word for many Greeks. "Austerity means unemployment, a dead economy and a 45% cut to my pension after I worked almost 40 years to get it," says Dimtrios Kountomerkos, a 58-year-old Athenian who retired from the Hellenic Air Force two years ago. "And still, after all these cuts, everyone says we're going to default again. What's the point?"
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