Greece’s parliament has passed a second raft of reforms required for bailout negotiations to begin.
The legislation easily passed with 230 votes for and 63 against in the 300-seat chamber, clearing the way for final talks on a bailout of up to €86 billion.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had to rely on opposition support again as 36 Syriza deputies - or almost a quarter of the party's 149 lawmakers - voted against the overall bill or abstained reflecting deep divisions in Syriza over the country’s third rescue program. However, this represents a smaller rebellion than in last week's initial vote.
Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis supported the measures, having voted against the government a week ago. Varoufakis has written a blog post explaining that he voted 'Yes' because he believes that the reforms to Greece’s legal system and banking sector are necessary, and had proposed them himself in the past.
Speaking before the vote, Tsipras stressed that he was not happy with the measures that creditors had imposed.
"We made tough choices, and I personally made difficult, responsible choices. Today we must all redefine the possibilities ahead of us given the new circumstances," Tsipras said in an appeal to parliament to back the reforms.
"We chose a difficult compromise to avert the most extreme plans by the most extreme circles in Europe."
This second set of measures passed early on Thursday morning were of a more structural nature, including:
a code of civil protection aimed at speeding up court cases
the adoption of an EU directive to bolster banks and protect savers' deposits of less than €100,000
the introduction of rules that would see bank shareholders and creditors - not taxpayers - cover costs of a failed bank
Controversial measures to cut early pensions and increase taxes paid by farmers have been pushed back to August. Postponing those measures may have averted an even bigger ruling party mutiny.