Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has urged the embattled nation’s politicians to unite behind the latest round of austerity measures or risk Greece being forced out of the EU.
The Prime Minister told parliament that the country will run out of money next month if they did not vote through the latest round of cuts and reforms he has agreed with the country’s lenders, the troika.
He faces the tough task of convincing his allies in the socialist and moderate Left parties to help him push through the agreement by November 12th. On that date the troika are expected to decide on whether to release the next round of bail-out money worth €31billion.
“Today we concluded the negotiation on the measures and the budget. If this deal is approved and the budget is voted, Greece will stay in the euro and exit the crisis; if the deal does not pass … the country will be led to chaos. Mr Samaras warned.
It is clear that Samaras will face difficult challenge with opposition party SYRIZA openly opposing the cuts and even faces a rebellion from within his own coalition with the Democratic Left Party saying that it would not support the reforms.
“The Democratic Left has fought on the issue of labour relations, to protect workers’ rights which have been already weakened. It does not agree with the result of the negotiations. We will not vote in favour of the labour reforms,” it said.
Wednesday also saw the release of the latest Eurozone unemployment data and it doesn’t paint a very pretty picture. The European Union’s statistics agency Euro stat reported that the jobless level has now hit 11.6%.
There are now 18.49million people out of work in the single currency region with an extra 146,000 joining the legions of unemployed in September alone. In the entire European Union there are now up to 25.751 million people out of work, up by 169,000 since August.
The Eurocrisis is far from over…
As of 10:30 am
The Pound to Euro exchange rate is currently trading at 1.2393
The Pound to US Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.6115
The Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.5505
The Euro to US Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.3003
The Euro to Pound exchange rate is currently trading at 0.8068
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