Greek Lawmakers Face Crucial Austerity Bill Vote

Greek lawmakers will vote Wednesday on a new austerity bill outlining controversial plans to redeploy 25,000 civil servants this year, despite mass protests against the reforms required for fresh aid funds.

Parliament needs to approve the bill for Greece to receive its next instalment of 6.8 billion euros ($8.9 billion) in bailout funds pledged by eurozone finance ministers.

Under the proposed reforms, affected civil servants including teachers and municipal police will have eight months to find new posts elsewhere or accept those offered to them. Otherwise, they would be fired.

Some 4,200 are due to be redeployed by the end of July.

"Landmark vote tonight," said the front page of liberal daily Kathimerini, while top-selling Ta Nea said the parliamentary debate on the bill that started on Tuesday was held in a "war atmosphere".

On Tuesday, more than 20,000 people protested in Athens and Greece's second city Thessaloniki during a general strike called by the main unions.

"I am now jobless, thanks to a piece of paper that has not even been voted into law," Dionyssis Vassis, head of technical instructors at public vocational schools who protested in Athens, told Agence France Presse.

His is one of the 52 teaching professions scheduled to be axed as of next week.

Municipal employees, who have been on strike since Monday, have planned more street protests for Wednesday in view of the vote.

Leading union Gsee has called the bill a "tombstone" for Greek workers.

Greece has been forced to implement a series of painful reforms over the past four years, in exchange for 240 billion euros in rescue funds put up by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

The sweeping job, pay and pension cuts have hit Greeks hard, sparking mass protests and general strikes.

Now in its sixth straight year of recession and with unemployment at a record 27 percent, Greece is not expected to post growth before 2014.