Greek demonstrators prepared to cordon off parliament and unions to strike on Wednesday in protest at the Socialist government's efforts to approve a fresh round of austerity for the debt-stricken euro zone state.
Prime Minister George Papandreou must push through a new five-year campaign of tax hikes, spending cuts and selloffs of state property to continue receiving aid from the European Union and International Monetary Fund and avoid default.
He not only faces daily protests and resistance from a conservative opposition that has surpassed his Socialist party in opinion polls, but backbenchers in his own parliamentary grouping are also threatening to reject the plan.
Tens of thousands of grassroots activists and unionists vowed to converge on Athens' central Syntagma square on the assembly's front steps on Wednesday as Papandreou's PASOK party discusses the measures and opens talk on them in committee.
The new deal foresees 6.5 bln euros ($9.4 bln) worth of tax hikes and spending cuts this year, almost doubling steps already agreed with bailout lenders that have raised the jobless rate to a record 16.2% and deepened a recession.
The government has appealed for national consensus on the laws, on which the EU and IMF have conditioned the release of another 12 bln euros in aid next month that Athens needs to pay off maturing debt.
"Every Greek, particularly the new generation, demands that we fight the battle with all our power, a battle to avoid a disastrous bankruptcy which will undermine the future of the country," government spokesman George Petalotis told reporters.
"We are fighting the battle to serve the common good, in the most crucial moment in the country's modern democracy."
Among other items, the mid-term plan includes new luxury taxes, a proposed crackdown on rampant tax evasion, increased taxes on soft-drinks, cars, swimming pools and real estate for a total savings of 28 bln euros through 2015.
It also entails cutting the eastern Mediterranean state's 750,000-strong public work force by a fifth over that period and raising 50 bln euros by selling off state-owned firms.
"CRUEL AS A TIGER"
Euro zone finance ministers, aiming to finalise a second aid deal at a June 23-24 summit, are pressing ahead with plans to make private creditors share the costs of a second bailout, although the European Central Bank opposes the plan and says it could shock global markets and put weaker euro states at risk.
PASOK has a majority in parliament and is expected to push through the deal by the end of the month as planned, possibly with a handful of opposition deputies voting for it as well.
But one PASOK deputy defected from its parliament group on Tuesday, cutting its numbers to 155 of the chamber's 300 seats, and another deputy said he would not back the package.
"You have to be as cruel as a tiger to vote for these measures. I am not," George Lianis said in a letter to Parliament Speaker Filippos Petsalnikos.
Many others also oppose the plan. Public sector union ADEDY, representing half a million workers, said it would join other demonstrators in peaceful protest. Trains were to stop, ports close and hospitals cut staffing. Airports will stay open.
"The VAT increase to 23% from 13% on restaurant businesses is an act of suicide," the GSEVEE small business association said in a letter to Papandreou.
Passing the plan will be the first step, to be followed by another set of laws on how to implement it. Analysts said that the plan was likely to make it into law despite all the hurdles.
"I think it will go through — but just," said Yanis Varoufakis, an economics professor at the University of Athens.
