GREECE’S fragile coalition government only narrowly averted disaster on November 7th when it won parliamentary approval for a drastic new austerity package. The package scraped through with 153 votes to 128 in the 300-member house.Antonis Samaras, the prime minister, made the best of it, saying that “Greece has turned a page.” Meanwhile furious anti-austerity protesters outside parliament hurled stones and Molotov cocktails at police in what has become a grim ritual.
The debate over the latest austerity measures, the toughest yet, had turned angry even before lawmakers studied the 500-page “poly-law” before them. Presenting the four-year programme to parliament’s economics committee, Yannis Stournaras, the finance minister, fended off attacks from Syriza, the leftist opposition party, pointing out that if it were voted down Greece would lose a desperately...
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