FT: Greece braced for crucial votes

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Antonis Samaras, the Greek

prime minister, invoked the prospect of his nation tumbling out of the eurozone as he sought to rally wobbling MPs ahead of critical parliamentary votes that could determine whether the government gains access to a desperately-needed €31.2bn loan payment.
“We have to save the country from catastrophe . . . Leaving the euro would be a nightmare and we intend to avert it,” Mr Samaras said.

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The prime minister was appealing to MPs from his centre-right New Democracy party to back an unpopular slate of fiscal and structural reforms, designed to save some €13.5bn of government spending, which Greece has promised its international creditors in return for its next loan payment. A vote on the package is due on Wednesday, followed by another high-stakes vote at the weekend on Mr Samaras’ proposed 2013 budget.
The long-delayed loan payment is being counted on to breathe life into a moribund economy by recapitalising Greece’s banks and settling bills with government suppliers. Agreeing the reforms is also a precondition for Greece’s eurozone partners to overhaul the country’s €174bn bailout so that it is less onerous.
Yet the challenge for Mr Samaras of mustering political support for further sacrifice has become ever greater as the country heads for its sixth year of recession and no relief in sight.
The Greek budget report last week suggested that previous rounds of austerity had so weakened the economy that they had raised – not lowered – Greece’s debt-to-gross domestic product ratio even beyond analysts’ worst-case scenarios.
That outcome has created a consensus among eurozone governments about the need to refashion the bailout and to find at least €13bn-€18bn in fresh financing to keep Greece solvent through to the end of 2014. Mr Samaras and his eurozone partners are hoping to have both elements – the reforms and the revised bailout – in order by a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels on Monday November 12.
The first step will be convincing Greeks to swallow the new reforms, which include more job and salary cuts. Mr Samaras has promised this dose of medicine will be “the final one”.
Analysts were optimistic the package will scrape through, if only by a few votes. One former government minister said: “Fear of the consequences – having to fight another election, the possibility of a Grexit wi