ATHENS, Greece, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Greece's Parliament early Wednesday overwhelmingly approved an austerity budget for 2012 designed to cut the country's deficit, officials said.
The Athens newspaper I Kathimerini reported on its Web site Greek lawmakers voted 258-41 with one lawmaker absent just after midnight Tuesday.
Just before the vote, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos told the lawmaker that while the measure were "difficult," they were key to "restore our international credibility" and "lay the foundations for economic recovery."
"History will not forgive us if we give up the fight for our future," he said.
The budget raises taxes and cuts spending in an attempt to cut the deficit to 5.4 percent of gross domestic product from a projected 9 percent, the BBC reported.
The vote, which had been expected, came ahead of a European Union summit on Thursday and Friday where regional fiscal issues will take top priority.
The budget approval comes along with the announcement that about 19,000 civil servants will be forced into early retirement or face a reduction in wages starting Jan. 1, I Kathimerini reported.
About 12,000 of those employees are close to retirement and the rest are employed by state agencies slated to be closed or merged.
The cost-cutting scheme could have civil servants earning 60 percent of their regular wages for 12 months at which point their status would be reassessed.
