Listening Exercises. Sentence completion

Difficulty level: medium

Listen to the recording and complete gaps in the text below.



“Greece's plan to raise taxes”

Greece has approved a plan to raise taxes, cut spending and sell government-owned . This clears the way for seventeen billion dollars in loans from the International Monetary Fund and the . The are a share of the one-hundred-fifty-six-billion-dollar rescue deal that Greece secured last year.

The money will help the government to operate and pay its until the middle of September. But the austerity plan led to a on Tuesday and Wednesday, along with violent demonstrations in Athens.

Several hundred protesters and police were injured. The Greek approved the forty-billion-dollar plan on Wednesday and the details on Thursday. Prime Minister George Papandreou won more support than expected for his proposals. He to parliament to do everything possible to avoid defaulting on the debts of the of democracy.