Greek Parliament Votes In Favor Of “Prior Actions” – Protests Erupt In Athens (Live Stream)

Euro-Group Deal Approved by Greek Parliament

The result of the parliamentary vote in Athens just came through, and was remarkably closely aligned with recent surveys of Greek voters. Funny enough, these surveys revealed approximately 70% approval of the deal offered by the euro-group among the population. No doubt the fact that the insolvency of Greece’s fractionally reserved banking system was recently painfully revealed to depositors after the ECB froze ELA had something to do with this sudden surge in support. Moreover, it is always possible that a majority of Greece’s citizens actually realizes that there is no way around wide-ranging reform.

Recent polls show soaring support for Syriza in spite of Tsipras ignoring the referendum outcome (source: Keep Talking Greece)

There were 229 “Yes” votes, 64 “No” votes and 6 abstentions. Make of this what you will, but the only parties unanimously voting “No” were the Stalinist KKE and the Neo-Nazi party “Golden Dawn”. In addition, a greater number of Syriza MPs rebelled than was previously expected (apparently 38 of the 149 Syriza MPs voted “No”, roughly equivalent to the size of the party’s Marxist Bloc) . Ironically, even though Mr. Tsipras has decided to completely ignore the “No” vote returned in the referendum, support for Syriza has soared among voters as well.

As a result of the vote, there are now protests in Athens – of which you can see a live stream below:

Rioting erupts in Athens

Live stream of protests

Conclusion

The result of the vote doesn’t surprise us, as it was always clear that most of the centrist opposition would vote in favor of the deal. As to the riots in Athens – if recent polls are to be believed, they don’t enjoy broad popular support at the moment. Greece’s bureaucrats are fearing loss of unrestricted access to the government teat and have gone on strike, but the administrative apparatus has to be reformed no matter what.