Greek lawmakers elect new speaker ahead of key debate

Greece's former interior minister Nikos Voutsis was elected parliament speaker on Sunday as lawmakers geared up for a crucial debate on the Syriza government's reform programme.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, fresh from his election win last month, said on Saturday he wants to move fast with the country's massive new bailout deal but warned that difficult decisions lay ahead.

A three-day parliamentary debate on the government's new economic policies will begin Monday, culminating on Wednesday with a confidence vote.

Eurozone finance ministers also meet on Monday for the first time since the Greek election on September 20 returned Syriza to government, ahead of an audit on the country's finances later this month.

EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said Greece would need to introduce even more economic reforms than those already agreed with creditors.

"We need more measures after the voting of the prior actions (in order to) "improve the climate for investments in Greece," he told Sunday's Proto Thema newspaper.  

Voutsis, a former Syriza minister, took over from sharp-tongued speaker Zoe Constantopoulou after winning the vote of 181 MPs out of 297 present.

Constantopoulou, who is no longer an MP, opposed the third bailout that was eventually agreed between Athens and its international creditors in August, and repeatedly sought to frustrate its ratification in parliament through stalling tactics.

- New tranche hinges on audit -

Voutsis is also also known for his anti-bailout rhetoric, but remained a member of Syriza even after it moved away from its anti-austerity stance and pushed through the 86-billion-euro ($96-billion) aid-for-reforms deal.

"We should work consistently during the four-year term of this parliament so that the perennial cycle of memorandum policies comes to an end," said 64-year-old Voutsis, referring to the August bailout deal.

Greece's lenders will conduct an audit in late October to determine whether Athens is abiding by the reform programme.
The release of a three-billion-euro ($3.3-billion) tranche of aid depends on its findings.

Athens must also finalise a procedure to recapitalise Greek banks by December, before new EU-wide bank rescue regulations come into play in 2016, as well as revise the 2015 budget which includes reforms such as doubling income tax for farmers by 2017.

Ahead of the audit, dozens of other measures including efforts to make the country's underfunded pension system viable and the introduction of sweeping tax hikes must be implemented.

In a last-minute act of defiance on Sunday, Constantopoulou published the findings of parliament's "debt truth" committee concerning what it called "The Illegitimacy, Illegality, Odiousness and Unsustainability of the August 2015 Memorandum of Understanding and Loan Agreement".

SourceL AFP