ATHENS: Riot police shielded Greece's national parliament on Sunday as demonstrators protested against austerity measures on the eve of talks in Brussels on a 130-billion-euro ($171 billion) bailout needed to avert bankruptcy.
Hopes for a deal at the meeting of euro zone finance ministers have risen after Athens last week detailed new budget cuts. But sceptics, led by Germany, are wary about Greece's determination to shrink its debt mountain.
More than 1,000 protesters had assembled outside parliament by mid-afternoon. Demonstrations last Sunday degenerated into looting and torching of buildings in central Athens.
"The austerity measures are really hurting pensioners - we can't just sit and take it," said retired state electricity worker Costas Xenakis, 70, whose monthly pension will be hit again by new cuts approved by caretaker Prime Minister Lucas Papademos' cabinet late on Saturday.
Banners such as one reading "Down with the memorandum of hunger" bore testimony to the anger many Greeks feel towards a political elite that allowed the country over the years to rack up a national debt worth 160 percent of national output while the super-rich took advantage of lax tax collection.
Ahead of an election due in April, a survey released on Sunday showed the two parties that have dominated politics since the 1974 end of junta rule - Socialist PASOK and conservative New Democracy - would muster little more than a quarter of the votes between them, with parties to the left gaining ground.
One survey by pollster MRB showed that while 73 percent of Greeks want the country to stay in the single currency, just 49 percent believe it will manage to do so in the next two years.
After months of often acrimonious negotiations, Greek hopes are rising that Monday's meeting in Brussels will endorse the rescue Athens needs to avoid bankruptcy on March 20 when major debt repayments fall due.
The country last week adopted a second austerity package since 2010, setting out 3.3 billion euros in wage, pension and job cuts, as well as savings on defence and health spending.
On Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and Papademos voiced optimism about a Greek accord during a conference call, Monti's office said.
A government official, who declined to be named, told Reuters that Papademos flew to Brussels on Sunday for talks ahead of Monday's decision. The source did not specify whom he would meet.
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