Douglas Carswell's Blog

Will the Finns approve the Portugal bailout?

Portugal is, we're told, to be given a £70 Billion bailout.  Far from solving a sovereign debt problem, such a deal has the effect of increasing a debtor's overdraft.  

Except that the Finns, who're still in the process of forming a government following their election the other day, might just veto the deal.

If the Finns do say "no", however, they'll most likely be giving a thumbs down to using the Euro Stability Fund to bailout Portugal.  But guess which other bailout fund could then get used to plug the gap instead?  That's right, the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism - the one that non-Euro Britain is part of.

In other words, thanks to the Stabilisation Mechanism, Britain might end up paying more to bailout casualities of monetary union than actual members of the Euro.

We keep being given conflicting accounts of how Britain ended up being part of this bailout deal.  The further we get sucked into Euroland's debt vortex, publishing details of how we got entangled is going to become unavoidable.

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