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FinMin: Loan to Greece Would Be Profitable for Slovakia
Monday 12 April 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava/Brussels, April 12 (TASR) - If Slovakia provides Greece a loan - within the coordinated financial aid, as was agreed Sunday by the Eurozone countries - Slovakia's public finance will profit from this, according to the Slovak Finance Ministry.
However, it still hasn't been decided if Greece will get a loan from Slovakia, TASR has learnt on Monday.
"We're waiting for the decision on financing this aid package, which has to be made by the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB)," TASR was told by the FinMin spokesman Miroslav Smal. The International Monetary Fund is contributing a third of the package.
If the rescue scheme is activated - which Greece itself has to apply for, however - Slovakia's share on the aid (if the package is provided as was projected - i.e. amounting to €30 billion) would represent some €300 million. Individual shares of eurozone countries is calculated based on their shares on ECB capital (excluding Greece), which would represent a share of 1.02 percent in Slovakia's case, said Smal. Germany, France and Italy respectively will make the greatest contribution.
"This would be a profit-making financial operation for Slovakia's public finance, because the interest rate here would be higher than costs for gaining these financial resources," Smal explained, adding that money made on this deal would be transferred into the state budget. However, Slovakia would have to borrow the amount to be used for the aid to Greece. "But that's what most of the countries would have to do, as virtually no country has such an amount at its disposal," he said.
The alternative to putting together the package is that Greece would default on its sovereign debt, which would set a precedent.
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