By Harry Papachristou and Renee Maltezou
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's government told parliament on Thursday there was no alternative to the deep budget cuts in its austerity bill and vowed to press ahead with it despite opposition from other parties and violent protests.
Speaking to lawmakers a day after some 50,000 Greeks marched in Athens and a petrol bomb attack killed three workers in a bank, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou made clear the government had no intention of backing down from its three-year plan to radically reform the country's broken economy.
"We will press ahead, even if we have to walk alone, without the backing of other parties," he said.
"We know the political cost is very high, but have no doubts, we accept this in full conscience. The solution for the Greek economy lies in this programme, in these changes and in the reduction of our public debt."
Parliament is due to vote late on Thursday on the bill, which foresees 30 billion euros (33.9 billion pounds) of new deficit-cutting measures, including drastic reductions to public sector bonuses which will sharply reduce take-home pay for a fifth of the workforce.
The main conservative and leftist opposition parties have said they will vote against the bill, which should not get in the way of its passage but has doomed government hopes of establishing a broad political consensus for the measures.
Greece's main public and private sector unions, whose strikes on Wednesday grounded flights, shut shops and brought public transport to a standstill, plan to demonstrate in front of parliament on Thursday evening.
Shop owners were repairing broken windows on Thursday and plumes of smoke were still rising from burnt-out garbage containers protesters had set on fire.
Dozens of Athenians flocked to the site of the Marfin bank branch on Stadiou Avenue in central Athens, laying flowers at the entrance of the blackened building where three employees died of smoke inhalation at the height of the Wednesday march.
More than 50 people were injured in Wednesday's clashes and 25 have been arrested for attacking police and damaging shops.
"DEVOURING EACH OTHER"
While people in the streets denounced the deaths as a tragedy, nobody was in a mood to rein in the protests against government plans.
"There were many people in the streets yesterday, but there should be even more. Everyone should come out to prevent these measures becoming law," said Avgoustinos Tertopoulos, 58, a mail courier. "The death of three young people, of a pregnant woman, was a tragedy. It has nothing to do with the protests."
Thanassis Nazaris, an elderly shop owner, said he expected protests to build after Greeks return from summer breaks and find they do not have enough money to live.
"Things will get worse. Wait till autumn, we will be devouring each other," he said.
Leading centre-right daily Kathimerini said the country had reached the most critical point in its post-war history.
"Whether we self-destruct, go bust in other words, depends on our leadership but also on all of us," the paper said.
Centre-left newspaper Eleftherotypia called the public reaction predictable and inevitable, forecasting more unrest in the months to come.
Despite the risks, University of Athens professor Kostas Ifantis predicted that the government would stick with the measures, which are being pushed through in exchange for 110 billion euros in aid from the EU and IMF.
"What can they do, scrap the whole programme?" he said. "I don't think so. They have no choice, there is no choice."
(Additional reporting by George Georgiopoulos; writing by Noah Barkin; editing by Andrew Roche)
