Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radičová attended a crucial eurozone summit in Brussels on October 26/27. It was held to find solutions to the continent’s sovereign debt crisis, which threatens the banking system and the euro’s future existence. The prime minister received a mandate to participate in the negotiations from the Slovak Parliament's European Affairs Committee, the SITA newswire wrote.
At the parliamentary committee’s session on October 26 Radičová stated that banks that find themselves in trouble should not attempt to address the situation with funds from their subsidiaries. Radičová said she planned to seek inclusion of this clause into the rules on recapitalisation of financial institutions. All the main Slovak banks, whose finances are reported to be solid, are owned by foreign banks based elsewhere in Europe.
"Slovakia will submit an important clause saying that parent banks cannot carry out their capitalisation via their subsidiaries. This was met with understanding and support," said Radičová, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
"I'm sure we'll arrive at an agreement surrounding programmes for countries and bank recapitalisation, I have no doubt there. However, whether we reach an agreement on a programme for Greece remains to be seen," she said.
At the summit, which only concluded in the early hours of October 27, European leaders agreed to cut Greece’s debt by 50 percent, including private banks in the write-down, and to increase the size of the eurozone bailout facility, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), to €1 trillion (€1,000,000,000,000).
Source: SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
