Athens becomes a war zone as Greece votes for austerity

GREEK MPs voted comfortably last night to pass legislation enacting billions of euros of cuts to public spending to make the eurozone country eligible for a €130bn IMF and EU bailout - but an outbreak of unprecedented violence on the streets of Athens gave notice of the depth of public sentiment against the measures.

More than 80,000 demonstrators turned out in the Greek capital in advance of the vote to besiege the parliament building and listen to speeches denouncing the austerity package. "The rebellion has begun," veteran leftwinger Manolis Glezos told reporters. "These measures will never pass. They are a breach of our democracy."

• In pictures: Athens burns as Greek protesters fight police

The worst violence took place in Syntagma Square, where rioters hurled petrol bombs, fireworks and rocks at police, who responded with volleys of tear gas. By late last night, buildings including banks, cinemas and shops had been torched and scores of protestors and police had been hospitalised.

Inside parliament there were similarly dramatic scenes as MPs invoked apocalyptic visions of Greece's future should it fail to pass the measures. The country had to choose between "something bad and something worse", finance minister Evangelos Venizelos said, while PM Lucas Papademos warned of closed hospitals and schools.

Giorgios Karatzaferis had withdrawn his right-wing Laos party from the coalition earlier in the week, complaining of the "humiliation" of Greece at the hands of Germany, but with the support of the socialist Pasok and conservative New Democracy parties the austerity measures were always going to be passed by the 300-seat parliament.

Following the vote, both main parties took revenge on those in their ranks who had rejected strong pressure and voted against the proposals: Pasok expelled 22 MPs, while Papademos's New Democracy removed the whip from 21 legislators.

Later, the Greek prime minister addressed the nation, explaining that without the bailout, the country "would be drawn into a vortex of recession, instability, unemployment and protracted misery and this would sooner or later lead the country out of the euro".

However, Papademos has a long way to go before he persuades the rest of Europe that his country will stick to the path of austerity. Speaking to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, the German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said: "The promises from Greece aren't enough for us any more.

"It needs to do its own homework to become competitive, whether that happens in conjunction with a new rescue programme or by another route that we actually don't want to take."

The first tranche of bailout money, needed to stave off bankruptcy when a €14.5bn bond must be repaid on March 20, will only be released after eurozone finance ministers approve it. ·