“Thriller” with possible concurrent vote on mid-term and relevant bills

Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos had a telephone communication late on Monday with  parliament president Filippos Petsalnikos in order to discuss the possibility of a concurrent vote of the mid-term austerity programme and the relevant bills about to be passed in parliament. The most probable date for the vote is June 30.

Earlier on, and still while in Luxembourg at the Eurogroup meeting, Venizelos had stated that the mid-term programme must be voted for, if Greece wants to receive the 5th bailout installment.

Venizelos underlined that, “the political time has been greatly compressed, every day that goes by is of extreme importance and thus we can not even waste a single hour”. Later in the day, he is expected to inform the MPs in parliament about the outcome of the Eurogroup meeting. 

Under the circumstances and taken that the borrowers keep insisting on the connection between the 5th installment and the overall voting of the mid-term plan, the relevant bill will be introduced to parliament within the next days as urgent. It is believed that if MPs are called upon to vote on both the mid-term plan and the relevant bill on June 30, there will be many of them belonging to PASOK who will fiercely oppose such a development.