Slovakia's Prime Minister decides honour has been served and agrees with the rescue fund
July 17, 2010
After holding out for a while, Slovakia has finally agreed to contribute to the massive rescue fund for the Euro zone. It's reasonable to ask if Slovakia's government had simply been playing to the gallery of public opinion; certainly the attitude of the organisers of the fund suggested that they knew that Slovakia would in time join the fund. Slovakia's Finance Minister Ivan Miklos stated that Slovakia was still looking for rules which would allow a irresponsible (does that mean incompetent?) country to go bankrupt. Presumably this means to go bankrupt rather than be propped up by by the fund and thereby have no incentive to mend its ways. Mr Miklos is right to ask for such rules but he'd be naïve to imagine that they'd mean anything; it is not possible to envisage a scenario in which the rescue fund had the wherewithal to help a country but would not provide the money in order to punish it.Meanwhile, as far as Greece is concerned, Prime Minister Radicova said that Slovakia objects to bailing out Greece because the cost of rescuing Greece would be borne by the ordinary citizens of Greece and all the other countries which contributed to the €110bn bailout. Mrs Radicova's explanation of Slovakia's stance is strange to say the least. She says that the problem wasn't caused by the citizens of Greece or of the European countries contributing to the rescue package; it certainly wasn't caused by the citizens of Slovakia but if it wasn't caused by Greek citizens then who was it caused by? She blames the Greek government, the banks and European institutions. This is standard socialism; ordinary people are not responsible for their actions and everything which happens is the fault of the State – or other institutions. The Greek citizens knew that their employment policies would lead the country to default; they knew that their politicians were incompetent at best and something worse at worst; but they did nothing. In any case, if the Greek government is made to carry the cost of the rescue, which it should do, who does Mrs Radicova think pays the costs of the Greek government if it's not the ordinary citizens?
It's business as usual in the Euro zone.
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