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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By KAREL JANICEK AND VANESSA GERA, Associated Press
December 14, 2011
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Of all the twists in Europe's debt crisis one of the
oddest must be this: Poles, Czechs and other eastern Europeans, long the
recipients of massive amounts of Western aid, are being asked to contribute
to an emergency fund for indebted Western European states.
That plan, decided at a European Union summit Friday, is sparking resistance
— and some outrage — from eastern Europeans who see a huge injustice in
being asked to sacrifice for countries that still enjoy much greater wealth,
even with mountains of state debt.
Czech and Slovak leaders have spoken out against the plan — sentiment also
being voiced in more emotional language by people across the region.
"This must be some kind of bad joke," said Jonas Vaicys, a math teacher in
Lithuania, an ex-Soviet state still recovering from a huge hit taken in the
financial crisis of 2008-09. "Lithuania itself is on the verge of asking for
international help, not donating money to some fund."
The plan is one of several measures that EU leaders agreed to as they
struggle to pull Europe out of its debt crisis. It involves EU members
providing up to euro200 billion in loans to the International Monetary Fund
to empower it to bail out indebted states. The bulk would come from eurozone
members, but even those members who don't use the shared currency are being
asked for help.
Hungary and Romania won't contribute because they are still paying the IMF
back for past bailouts. And Bulgaria — the EU's poorest member — says its
has nothing to offer.
But several other ex-communist countries now face an obligation to make
reserves from their central banks available to the IMF as loans.
This marks quite a change for a part of Europe that has depended for years
on Western aid to overcome the crippling economic legacy of communism. That
their help is now sought signals just how far they have come after years of
investment and high growth.
Some in this region argue that gratitude alone should prompt them to
contribute to the fund without complaining.
But despite years of economic progress, the standard of living across
central and eastern Europe still lags far behind the West, and many are
loath to go along with the IMF plan.
Poland, for instance, has a debt load much lower than that of Greece and
Italy — but this is also because the state simply doesn't provide the
generous welfare benefits to its people that many take for granted in the
West. Wages, jobless benefits and baby bonuses are all just a fraction of
what they are in much of the West.
Now, asking these countries to spare funds for indebted eurozone members
could create a popular backlash against any governments that contribute —
especially as their own economies are already feeling the pain from the
broader European crisis.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas said he is personally against contributing
the roughly 90 billion koruna (euro3.5 billion; $4.6 billion) his country
has been asked for. But he also said more analysis is needed before his
government reaches a decision.
"It's a serious situation and a very complicated financial problem," Necas
said Tuesday. "A considerable amount of money is involved."
In Slovakia, Jozef Kollar, a leader of Freedom and Solidarity — a center-
right party in the government — said he has an "overall negative" view of
the plan. He called it a "weird transaction" pushed through by German and
French leaders to get more money for an EU rescue fund without going through
their parliaments.
The mood is different in Poland, where the pro-EU government of Prime
Minister Donald Tusk and the central bank favor contributing. Leaders in
Warsaw hope to adopt the euro one day, and argue that the survival of the
eurozone — a source of large EU subsidies and a key trade partner — is
crucial to Poland's own continued growth and modernization.
"A collapse of the eurozone would be an economic disaster for us," central
bank president Marek Belka said Tuesday.
Poland, the largest of the new EU members, is also trying to establish
itself as a leading European power — and therefore simply wants to be in
the game.
The popular view is different, however.
Poland's leading tabloid, Fakt, has tried to stir up a sense of outrage over
what it depicts as an absurd injustice. It carried front-page stories
Tuesday and Wednesday that compare the low wages in Poland — which it put
at 1,400 zlotys ($410) a month for minimum wage work — with salaries two or
three times as high in Greece and Italy.
"And we are supposed to pay for their luxuries?" the paper asked in big
letters across its front page Tuesday.
Emotion aside, other arguments against contributing to the fund are also
coming up.
Tomas Vlk, an analyst with Patria Finance in Prague, worries that
participation could "worsen the Czech position in the eyes of rating
agencies."
That, in turn, could make it more expensive for Prague to finance its own
state debt.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus, known for his skepticism of the EU, said he
opposes contributing because it would add to the country's own debt problems.
"In this situation, it would be irresponsible to increase our debt by
providing more loans to the countries with extreme debts, which would only
allow them to further delay real solutions," Klaus said Monday on Czech
public radio.
___
Janicek contributed from Prague, Czech Republic. Associated Press writer
Liudas Dapkus also contributed from Vilnius, Lithuania.
---
"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary."
--- Ernesto "Che" Guevara
看某些人的帖子有感，五千年的奴性文化的熏陶，真不是盖的。
管你在美国呆一辈子，也还一样。 |
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