BRATISLAVA, April 20, (SITA) — The liberal SaS party will not support Slovakia’s participation in the new, permanent European Stabilization Mechanism in a parliamentary vote, the party’s leader and Speaker of Parliament Richard Sulik told Wednesday’s news conference. He added that SaS is here to protect interests of the Slovak people and not interests of foreign banks, which “for years have been profiting on high interest rates on loans for irresponsible countries”. The SaS party will, however support the revision of the Lisbon Treaty, which is to enable formation of the new EU bailout fund. “In simple words, Slovakia must not pay for bad investments of foreign banks”, SaS deputy Martin Chren added.
Richard Sulik went on to say that it is a unanimous decision of the SaS Republican Council as well as of SaS deputy faction. He is prepared for the eventuality that if Slovakia’s participation in the bailout fund is not approved by Parliament, the country will be subject to criticism from Brussels. “Brussels’ politicians will not be happy, but we have to live with that. This is a matter of principal for us. For 600 million euros, they can give us ugly looks,” Sulik added. In line with the agreed-upon rules, Slovakia’s contribution to the permanent bailout fund would be EUR 660 million over the first five years.
Among the reasons why the party decided not to support Slovakia’s involvement in the stabilization mechanism, head of SaS deputy faction Jozef Kollar stated refusal to support irresponsible behavior of some EU members, the volume of Slovakia’s contribution, which could reach almost one-fifth of the country’s current debt. “The bailout fund actually prevents economic recovery of indebted countries,” Kollar stated.
According to Sulik, an alternative to the bailout fund for a country unable to repay its debt is default. The SaS does not want to prevent other countries from helping ailing economies. Therefore, they will support the revision to the Lisbon Treaty that is to allow establishing the bailout fund.
The new, permanent European bailout fund with a lending capacity of EUR 500 billion is to replace the temporary stabilization facility as of 2013.
SITA