Greece hopes the EU will grant a second bailout worth 130 billion euros despite the government's failure to secure agreement on pension cuts at a marathon meeting that ended early on Thursday morning.
Last night Greece's main political parties approved a number of austerity measures - except a pension cut - as agreed previously with the troika of international lenders comprising the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund.
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos will fly to Brussels for Thursday's European Commission meeting in the hope of securing the second bailout package worth $158 billion and avert default.
The financial support from the EU and IMF Greece has received beginning in May 2010 is aimed at reducing the country's large budget deficit. However, the austerity measures approved by the government have sparked numerous riots and strikes, and the Greek government has missed its targets.
According to Greek media, the measures stipulate cuts in the minimum monthly wage - currently 751 euros - by 32 percent for employees under 25 and by 22 percent for all others, as well as elimination of 15,000 civil service jobs this year and an overall reduction in the number of government employees by 150,000 before 2015.
"Austerity measures are like shoes that are too tight. Sooner or later, you want to kick them off," Yiorgos Karatzaferis of the far-right Popular Orthodox Rally (Laos) was quoted by the Irish Times as saying, adding that troika representatives were using "time as a means to blackmail".
