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EU makes UK liable for Greek debts

Thursday, 10th June 2010

The Government has finally confirmed that Britain could be liable to pay nearly £8bn of Greece's debts.

The news came in the House of Lords when the coalition was forced to answer a question asked by UKIP leader Lord Pearson, and showed how European Finance Ministers bent the rules about financial aid in order to prop-up the failing Eurozone economy.

When Lord Pearson asked if the UK could be forced to pay billions of pounds towards other EU countries' debts, Lord De Mauley (on behalf of the government replied: "Finance ministers agreed up to €60billion of emergency finance. Where there are defaults on loan payments... member states would be liable for a share. The UK's share would be approximately 13.6%, or up to a maximum of around €8 billion.

The EU are using a little known paragraph (article 122.2) of the Treaty of the Functioning European Union to enable the bailout.

Lord Pearson challenged the government on the legality of using the treaty in such a way stating: "This article can only be used legally to help with natural disasters, such as earthquakes and so on."

Avoiding the question, the government's spokesman stopped referring to the package as ‘emergency finance' and changed it to ‘loan', seemingly admitting to UKIP that the treaty could not be used to ‘give' money to countries in this circumstances he said: "That does not rule out member states lending each other money."

After the Lord's questions, a UKIP spokesman said: "It's all very well the government saying it is just a loan, but the EU have taken so many steps in committing Britain to pay-up should a country default on the loan, that we can't help wondering if the EU finance ministers are really expecting a single cent of it to be paid back.

"At the moment Greece has no money, they wouldn't be able to pay anyone back the price of a cup-of-tea, let alone €60billion. It looks like we are going to have to make even more cuts to our public services, so we can pay some of Greece's debts for them."

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