10 million Greek voters vote on "austerity" policy

Polling stations in Greece opened on July 5 for voters in a referendum on whether the country will accept tough austerity demands from its international creditors in exchange for a new financial bailout.

A woman votes in Athens. (Source: AP)

The European Union (EU) is eagerly awaiting the results of the event which is expected to decide the future of this "common European home".

Nearly 10 million eligible Greek voters have begun heading to polling stations across the country. Voting runs from 7am to 7pm local time.

Currently, the government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is trying to call on people to vote "no" to the "austerity" policy so that he can have more bargaining power to "exchange reforms for debt relief" with creditors.

According to opinion polls, the proportion of people voting "Yes" to support the austerity-for-bailout plan may be equal to those saying "No", showing that the referendum result is still very unpredictable.

The referendum results are expected to be announced after 9:00 p.m. local time (1:00 a.m. Hanoi time on July 6).

Ahead of this historic referendum, the Greek economy has literally collapsed with stores running out of food and medicine, the tourism industry facing a wave of flight delays and cancellations and banks having only enough cash to last until the end of the week./.

(According to VN+)