Eurozone leaders said they hoped to finally seal a Greek bailout deal this week but Greek lawmakers reacted angrily to concessions Athens offered in debt talks.
European leaders are now looking at the next Eurogroup meeting starting on Wednesday evening, in Brussels to reach a final deal on the reform plan.
If a deal is reached on 25 June attention will rapidly shift to national parliaments, which would need to approve the deal to release the cash. The biggest obstacles would probably be the German, Dutch and Finnish legislatures, where many parliamentarians have been vociferously opposed to any further cash to help Greece. German Chancellor Angela Merkel won’t even submit an aid packet to the German Bundestag until the Greeks pass the economic legislation first.
Prime Minister Tsipras could also face difficulties dealing with the opposition from within Syriza. This comes mainly from his party's so called Left Platform, a group that controls 30% of the seats of Syriza’s central committee and is dominated by lawmakers opposed to anything that smacks of austerity.
Syriza, which came to power five months ago on a clear anti-austerity platform, is a coalition of left-wing groups with an intricate family tree formed out of doctrinal splinters and squabbles. That unusual composition has made it especially hard for the Greek Prime Minister to reach consensus within his own party about any potential bailout agreement with Greece’s creditors.
Gabriel Sakellaridis, the government's deputy speaker, warned the proposals would struggle to win approval, puncturing optimism that a deal to lift Greece out of crisis might be quickly sealed, Reuters reports.
If the Greek parliament does fail to back the latest offer, which included higher taxes and welfare changes and steps to curtail early retirement, Prime Minister Tsipras might resort to calling a snap election or a referendum on any deal with the country’s international creditors if the package seems to go beyond the political mandate that brought his leftist government into power.
"If (the government) does not have the parliamentary majority, it cannot remain (in power)," Sakellaridis told Mega TV.