As the deadline approached, Prime Minister Iveta Radicova told lawmakers in Bratislava in a closed negotiating session for the governing parties that she would either tie the decision on the bailout fund to a confidence vote or bring the matter to a simple vote and resign if it did not pass, a government official said.
The vote on expanding the size of the fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility, and its powers is scheduled for Tuesday. The free-market Freedom and Solidarity Party, one of the four parties in the coalition, has refused to back it, prompting a political crisis that could bring down the government.
The coalition parties will meet one final time on Tuesday morning, before the afternoon session of Parliament, to try to reach a compromise. “The decision will be made tomorrow morning,” said the government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about private negotiations. A confidence vote would explicitly tie the fate of the government to the fate of the bailout, putting additional pressure on holdouts to concede.
Politicians in capitals across Europe are closely watching the developments in Bratislava. An agreement to expand the fund was reached in July by the leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro. All of the countries need to approve the accord for the changes to take effect. Malta approved the plan on Monday, leaving Slovakia as the last of the 17 nations to take up the accord for formal consideration.
The resistance in Slovakia is the most significant hurdle standing in the way of the deal. The possibility that Slovakia, a small former Communist country with a population of 5.5 million, could scuttle an agreement endorsed and passed by European powers like Germany, France and Italy had seemed inconceivable.
If Slovakia’s Parliament does not approve the agreement, the future of the euro currency could be in jeopardy, along with a united Europe and quite possibly the stability of the global economy.
The leader of Freedom and Solidarity, Richard Sulik, who is also speaker of the Parliament, has steadfastly refused to support the financial stability fund. He contends that it is unfair to ask Slovakia, the second-poorest country in the euro zone, to guarantee loans for richer countries like Greece and Portugal. If the measure is approved, Slovakia will contribute roughly $10 billion in debt guarantees to a $590 billion euro zone stability fund.
“We cannot allow the Slovakian taxpayers to be massively damaged,” Mr. Sulik said in an interview last week. He vowed not to change his mind.
The opposition Smer-Social Democracy party could bridge the gap, but its leader, the former prime minister Robert Fico, will support the proposal only in exchange for new elections, which could return him to power.
Few Slovaks want to foot the bill for other countries’ overspending. But surveys show that the European Union is popular in Slovakia, and people are very proud of having adopted the currency while neighbors like Poland and their former countrymen, the Czechs, have not.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=365b065990b8dec4e0fac812c79b09a6
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