Hold on, Slovakia

The Slovak parliament yesterday declined to be bullied by the Brussels eurorats into committing a sum equal to a whole year's budget to the initial rescue fund for Greece. There will now be immense bribery, bullying and propaganda to force a reversal of that decision: thus reaffirming the profound hatred of the rats for democracy and national sovereignty.

Every politically-aware European knows that the initial fund [if it is approved] is already insufficient, and much larger contributions are already being computed. It is also recognised that such a fund could only be managed by a eurozone Treasury: removing financial sovereignty from the member states. The Slovaks have only had their own state since 1993, and [despite many frictions] their economic progress has been spectacular. They have every reason to be proud of their economy, yet their standard of living is still far below that of the Greeks: they have every right to decline to be milked to subsidise wastrels and liars.

Eurorats and most members of the European Parliament [who 'go native' very quickly] will deplore the 'inflamatory' language in this blog, if it comes to their attention. But it is important that the strength of feeling is understood: merely trying to suppress it and to deny it exposure in the media will briefly drive it underground - only to emerge in ugly rightist movements.

Sklovakia should stand firm

Slovakia has very recently been noticed by many international media ccommentators as a possible obstacle to  the quiet confirmation of the already-spent first tranche of the eurozone's bailout package for Greece.
 Now that the Bundestag has voted in favour - as was always to be expected - parliamentary approval remains to be secured from half a dozen member states: with the Slovaks likely to vote last. Their vote is expected to take place in about a month's time, and the consensus view of outsiders is that the majority of factions will accept the obligation to be 'good Europeans' in the way that the eurorats of Brussels seek to impose on all their vassals.
This will give time for a much better test of the ability of the Greek government to deliver what they have promised in terms of job cuts, salary and pension reductions, and sales of public assets [and of the appetite of markets to buy Greek assets and take on their depressed workforces]. The current Greek policy must stand the test of time - obviously a much longer timescale than the next month - but the next month might give indicative evidence of the viability of the policy.
The Slovaks had to open up their books and admit the most exhaustive checks of their acceptability for euro membership; in a way that none of the founder members were tested. There is no reason why they should feel the slightest obligation to help international fraudsters, which is what the Greeks who managed their country's entry to the euro were. The other founder members can be construed as co-conspirators with the Greeks, because the facts were transparent at the time.
So if the Slovaks delay - or even defeat - the passage of the package of eurozone aid, they must be exonerated from the original sin.
Fear of the consequences of the bailout collapsing and causing a distressed default by Greece, followed by other countries and a global depression, will probably impel the Slovak parliamentarians to allow the package to proceed, in the end. But they have a good right to decide when that decision will be taken, and to raise a warning to the whole eurozone that they cannot take for granted the support of all the members for whatever is decided in the back-corridors of Brussels.