Post by tuftabis on May 18, 2010 11:28:45 GMT -7
Poland rues lack of early action on euro zone woes
BRUSSELS, May 18 (Reuters) - The euro zone's debt crisis and massive rescue costs involved could have been avoided if the bloc's governments had taken action to aid Greece much earlier, Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said on Tuesday.
Speaking after a meeting of European Union finance ministers, Rostowski blamed some EU institutions and member states for failing to act fast and refusing initially to involve the International Monetary Fund in helping Greece.
"In the last three months, we had a situation in which many EU institutions and member states did not react fast enough and efficiently enough to the threat that appeared," he told a news conference.
"We spoke at the beginning of the Greek crisis in February that Greece should be encouraged to turn to the IMF, but some EU institutions and governments were against that," he said.
"If Greece had turned then to the IMF, we would not have had this crisis and we would have calmed the markets with much smaller costs," he added.
After months of hestation, the EU and IMF agreed in early May to lend Greece 110 billion euros ($137 billion) to help it pay billions in expiring debt. The decision came after Greek financial woes hit the euro and boosted borrowing costs for some other countries.
To prevent the crisis from spreading to other countries, EU governments, with the help of the IMF, later set up a 750 billion euro emergency aid mechanism for states in trouble in the currency area.
Rostowski refused to put blame for on any late decision solely on the government in Germany, where aiding Greece has been highly unpopular.
"It is not right to point at Germany in particular. Several other countries and institutions are to be blamed," he said, without giving more details. (Reporting by Marcin Grajewski; editing by Stephen Nisbet)