Greek civil servants protest before parliamentary vote

Protesters on the streets on Sunday said that with the implementation of the new measures Greek society will sink deeper in misery.

As Greek officials forecast a return to growth next year, citizens expect a further increase on the record high unemployment and poverty rates triggered by the harsh austerity and reform program introduced three years ago in return for rescue loans to avoid a chaotic default and potential exit from the euro.

"The multi draft bill will bring exactly the opposite. While economy needs further funding to restore development, the bill takes away more than 6.5 billion euros from the pockets of Greek citizens and intensifies the problem of liquidity. They keep on with the austerity policies, instead of adopting growth policies," Tassos Basteas, a public servant at Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYDAP), told Xinhua on Syntagma square.

With his income reduced by 50 percent in two years following rounds of salary cuts and tax increases, his wife and two children jobless for months and the burden of a house mortgage heavy on his shoulders, Basteas is pessimistic about the next day under the current plan.

"The only solution is to implement a policy that is exactly opposite to the three memorandums imposed so far; measures that will safeguard our incomes, will decrease the taxation to the middle and lower classes and will deal with the severe debt problem we have. I believe that the debt problem should be solved by imposing development stipulation and of course by having a further debt haircut," he said, as deputies debated the draft bill.

George Kontostavlos, teacher in a private school, joined Sunday's demonstration determined to continue protesting until his voice will be heard.

"We came to protest against the draft bill that affects labor relations in the sector of the public education, and leaves without job thousands of people working in the public sector. The policy imposed in the whole area of Southern Europe demolishes the foundations of Europe, dismantles labor rights and the only thing we can do is to overturn it," he said amidst banners with anti-austerity slogans.

"The majority of the Greek parliament, which consists of the three coalition government, drives Greek society to a deadlock. This must change," he said.