Greece will receive the first batch of funds under its new bailout programme after the German parliament voted to support the deal, despite widespread misgivings about whether Athens will manage to implement reforms in return for the money.

Following the Bundestag vote, eurozone finance ministers agreed to release €26bn (£18.4bn) of the €86bn bailout immediately, helping Greece meet a payment due to the European Central Bank and recapitalise its struggling banking sector.



The money will be disbursed by the EU’s bailout fund, the European stability mechanism. The ESM board, staffed by the eurozone’s finance ministers, said it had agreed the programme for delivering the €86bn package.

“Today the countries in the eurozone have mandated the ESM to make to a maximum of €86bn available to finance Greece,” said Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister. “The programme for the coming three years goes with strict conditions ... aiming at setting right public finances and administration and dealing with the economy and problems in the financial sector.”

Germany approves third Greek bailout. Crisis over … for a couple of months Read more

The first tranche under the ESM program will be worth up to €26bn, in which €10bn will be made available immediately for bank recapitalisation. The other €16bn will be disbursed to Greece in several instalments, starting with a first disbursement of €13bn by Thursday, followed by one or more further disbursements in the autumn.

Germany’s parliament backed the bailout following a heated debate in the Bundestag, despite the expression of doubts among MPs over the sustainability of the deal.

Following three hours of lively debate, 453 voted in favour of the rescue package, while 113 voted against it and 18 MPs abstained.

A total of 63 MPs of Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU conservative alliance rebelled against the government despite warnings that there would be consequences if they failed to toe the party line. Three conservative MPs were among those who abstained.

The rebellion is a blow to Merkel, amounting to three more than the number who rebelled during a similar vote in July. It is far fewer, however, than the 120 that it was suggested might have voted against the government.

Absent from the chamber altogether were 47 politicians, with many said by colleagues to have deliberately chosen to stay away, rather than be forced to vote no and risk being accused of disloyalty towards Merkel. Of the 47 were from the CDU/CSU, and 16 from the SPD.

Bundestag observers said that despite being held during the summer holiday and with some MPs either ill or unable to return from far-flung places, never had so few voted in such an important vote. It was a sign of how controversial the topic has been, they added.

Addressing the parliament on behalf of the government, the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, who until a few weeks ago was calling for a temporary exit of Greece from the euro, appealed to parliamentarians to vote in favour of the bailout, the third such deal in five years.

“Of course, after the experience of the last years and months there is no guarantee that everything will work and one is allowed to have one’s doubts,” Schäuble said. “But owing to the fact that the Greek parliament has already passed a large part of the measures, it would be irresponsible not to use the opportunity for a new start in Greece.”

His speech was greeted with strong applause from the house.

Gregor Gysi of the leftwing Die Linke, 12 of whose MPs did not turn up to vote, accused the government of profiting from the crisis. He was particularly critical of the privatisation of 14 regional airports in Greece, for what he called a “dumping price”, to the German airport operator Fraport. He claimed Germany was expected to earn €100m from Greece and “should be helping to rebuild it, not forcing it to save”.

Thomas Oppermann of the Social Democrats, junior coalition partners in the government, said the third bailout was of a “much higher quality” to the first two, as it was conditional on reforms being implemented, including the abolition of tax exemptions for ship owners and farmers. “A poor state cannot afford to have tax subsidies for rich ship owners,” he said.

Klaus-Peter Willsch, a CDU MP from Hesse who was one of the 63 “rebels” and who has repeatedly called for Greece to leave the eurozone, said: “If you’ve taken a head-first running jump at a wall twice, then you should probably look to see if there’s door somewhere. And that door is called Grexit.”

Merkel did not participate in the debate, apparently to avoid the vote becoming a decision on her leadership, even though the Greek crisis and her chancellorship are now arguably inextricably intertwined. Instead she sat in the chamber, nodding, laughing and talking to fellow MPs before casting her vote and swiftly departing with her entire cabinet for a business trip to Brazil.