Wall Street Journal interviews Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova on the reasons why Slovakia refuses to bail out Greece with further loans

Wall Street Journal interviews Iveta Radicova on the reasons why Slovakia refuses to bail out Greece with further loans




http://online.wsj.com/video/slovak-pm-wants-rules-on-defaults-for-euro-area/27574DAA-D4C6-4FE8-B835-89E4A58BDE29.html 

Iveta Radicova is clearly an intelligent leader, and she explained that Slovakia is participating in an Eurozone insurance policy for the protection of the euro due to unforseen and unavoidable future circumstances.

However she politely suggested that the greek situation is not justifiable as a bailout, because it was hardly an unavoidable situation and that the indirect beneficieries of such bail-outs (often rich investors and banks) need to accept the risk of their investments and the tax payer cannot be there to pick up the pieces if the investor does not do their due dilligence. This is a point made by several economists over the years when bailouts started with Asia & Mexico under Clinton.

In other words the PM of Slovakia noted her and her country's aversion to a development model largely based on ever increasing borrowing. She expressed her solidarity with the greek people but not with the practices of their governments in the last 20-30 years in relation to debt.

This is not just words, Slovakia has a tiny national debt as a % of GDP which is even smaller than Finland and about half that of Germany at around 35%, moreover this is likely to decline further. One cound say that Slovakia is a very debt averse country culturally, and seems to be baffled by the prevalence of the credit card and other forms of indebtedness in the anglosaxon world.

The Slovak Prime Minister called for stronger regulation of euro-zone financial markets and for allowing overly-indebted countries to undergo and orderly default rather than throwing them new credit lifelines.

Earlier this year Slovakia, the newest and poorest of the 16-rich-nation currency group, caused a stir around Europe when it refused to be part of a EUR110 billion bailout for Greece, agreed on in May by euro-zone member countries and the International Monetary Fund. However it should remembered that Slovakia's share is fairly small as it is a small country of only 5 million people.