adminYesterday’s protests saw hundreds of youths pelting riot police with petrol bombs, bottles and chunks of marble.
The measures for 2013-14, worth $17,7b, aim to prevent the country from going bankrupt and potentially having to leave the 17-nation eurozone.
Riot police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades as protesters ran from the area of clashes in the capital’s Syntagma Square outside Parliament, splitting the demonstration in two.
Hundreds of police were deployed in Athens ahead of the demonstration, as such protests have turned violent in the past.
The strike grounded flights, shut down public services, closed schools, hospitals and shops and hampered public transport in the capital. Taxi drivers joined in for nine hours, while a three-hour work stoppage by air traffic controllers led to flight cancellations. Islands were left cut off as ferries stayed in ports.
A protest march by about 17 000 people in the northern city of Thessaloniki ended peacefully.
Athens has seen hundreds of anti-austerity protests over the past three years, since Greece revealed it had been misreporting its public finance figures.
Yesterday’s strike was timed to coincide with a European Union summit in Brussels later in the day, at which Greece’s economic fate will likely be a major topic of discussion.
The heads of the 27 EU member states are in the Belgian capital to discuss how to save the euro from collapse and support countries facing too much debt and not enough growth.
But the summit that started yesterday and ends today promises to be just a small pit-stop on the road to recovery, with few decisions expected. The discussion will also include ideas of how to support the nations’ banks, one part of the crisis.
Some countries have stepped in to save their failing banks, and are now struggling themselves. The EU is considering forming a “banking union” to break this dangerous connection. But some countries are eager to put on the brakes on the plan. — AP.
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