Greece’s prime minister faces protests this week over a bill that must pass for the country to receive a fresh tranche of EU-IMF aid.
“Stress test in the parliament and on the streets” said the front page To Vima weekly on Sunday, while left-leaning Eleftherotypia discussed a “political heatwave.”
One month after conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s controversial shutdown of state broadcaster ERT, a bill outlining reforms including a redeployment plan affecting thousands of civil servants has caused widespread protests.
If the bill passes as expected on Wednesday, 4,200 civil servants will have to be placed on a reserve scheme until the end of July.
Municipal authorities are on strike until the day of the vote, with the protests peaking on Tuesday, as the country’s two main unions have called a general strike under the slogan “We are people and we will not become numbers.”
Debt-wracked Greece has had to enact a string of austerity measures over the past four years in return for multi-billion euro international bailouts to avoid default.