Greece will continue austerity policies

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras says his government will continue its austerity policies after surviving a no-confidence vote in parliament.

“The government has emerged stronger and will continue the same policies,” said Samaras on Monday.

Samaras made the remarks after his government survived a no-confidence vote called by the leftist opposition party, SYRIZA, in the parliament on Sunday.

Some 124 of the 300 lawmakers in the parliament voted for the opposition’s censure motion and 153 rejected it.

The opposition’s call for the censure vote followed a police raid on former state broadcaster ERT’s headquarters in Agia Paraskevi, a suburb in the north of the capital on November 7.

After the police raid on ERT’s headquarters, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras said the government had “no popular mandate” for its policies concerning ERT.

Law enforcement officers reportedly evicted all the employees who had occupied the building since June when the government shut down the broadcaster and dismissed its 2,600 staff.

Samaras announced the closure of the ERT in an effort to keep Greece’s foreign creditors satisfied that the country had been fulfilling its debt restructuring and bailout commitments.

Inspectors from the troika of European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund arrived in Athens on November 6 to resume their latest bailout review.

Greece has relied on international rescue loans for economic survival since 2010. Athens has promised its international creditors that it will cut 4,000 state jobs and put 25,000 civil servants on a redeployment scheme by the end of 2013.

Greece has been at the epicenter of the eurozone debt crisis and is experiencing its sixth year of recession, while harsh austerity measures have left tens of thousands of people without jobs.

The country’s unemployment is currently above 27 percent, banks are in a shaky position, and pensions and salaries have been slashed.