Estonia open to more aid for Greece
Estonia, hailed as a poster child of fiscal prudence, is open to aiding Greece with a third bailout and helping other troubled eurozone nations, its prime minister said on Thursday.
A year ago Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told Reuters that bailout fatigue among voters threatened the currency bloc, but he now strikes a more optimistic chord.
“We have to understand that we are not just helping Greece or other countries, we are also protecting ourselves,” Ansip told Reuters in an interview.
“So we are creating those firewalls, and when those firewalls are high enough then we don’t have to spend so much money on fire extinguishers and most likely we will not get fire in our house. So we have to go on, we have to be flexible,” he said.
International lenders estimate that Greece will need around 10-11 billion euros from the second half of 2014, although several eurozone governments are reluctant to extend further loans because of negative public opinion. [Reuters]
