The Greek Parliament approved early on Thursday the second set of reforms, which Athens has to implement in order to start negotiations on a third bailout with its international creditors. The parliament passed two more prior actions, which concern the adoption of a European bank resolution scheme and the change of the civil procedure code. A total of 230 MPs voted in favour of the reforms, 63 were against, while five MPs abstained, daily Kathimerini reports. The vote was crucial as it would show whether Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has restored the confidence of his party. Dissent within SYRIZA seems to have slightly decreased as only 36 MPs did not support the reforms, while the rebels within the main ruling party against the first round of reforms were 39. The former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who had opposed the first round of reforms, voted in favour of the second set. However Varoufakis issued a statement, saying that he did so only to help the government buy time, as according to him, the agreement with the creditors was to fail. Tsipras called on MPs to support the bailout agreement in order to counteract Greek opponents, who were forcing the country out of the eurozone. The Greek PM assured that his government would never allow banks to seize the primary residences of Greeks. The 977-page bill, which was discussed on Wednesday, will simplify the process required for courts to reach a decision and write EU rules for dealing with failing banks into Greek law. The new reforms will protect a taxpayer from the cost of bank failures and foresee that unsecured depositors, who have more than EUR 100 000 at an individual bank, will face losses before taxpayers. The legislation provides that shareholders, senior and junior creditors will be in line to take a hit before depositors. The law will not come into effect until the beginning of 2016 and Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos told MPs that Greek banks would have been recapitalised by then.
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