EU deciding on Greece bailout by Zuzana Zelenakova

Greece, that experiences most severe debt crisis is currently in a serious trouble. It seems that introducing the euro was quite a precocious move as the country was clearly not ready to deal with this kind of change. Greece can either introduce extensive budget cuts and expect subsequent recession or hope for bailout plan from its EU partners. Or even quit the euro. Great expectations are directed towards EU summit scheduled for Thursday, when most likely decision will be made about giving away billions for Greece to fight the crisis. The first extraordinary meeting called by new EU President Herman Van Rompuy was originally supposed to be quiet, non-urgent one, however, ! the Greek emergency and possible widening of the crisis changed that. The thing is, many are worried that the financial instability of Greece could undermine the entire euro currency zone, with relatively weak members such as Portugal, Spain, Ireland going first. "We have spent a lot of taxpayers money bailing out the banks, now let’s help those same hard working people by creating jobs," said Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists, in a statement late Wednesday."They did not cause this financial crisis." When it comes to ways of coping with the problem the German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected repeatedly the idea that European Union is forced to seek help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) based in Washington. The IMF is already dealing with the recovery processes in two EU member states – Hungary and Latvia. While Angela Merkel is convinced EU should try to deal with the problem on its own, that is within the continent, ! there are voices such as Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg ! and othe r officials claiming that involving the IMF would be a better way. “There is a feeling that the IMF could offer a better course of action. The IMF has precedents or doing this, it has a system with measures in place,” said an EU official.

related story (sgx16470): http://www.france24.com/en/20100210-greece-bailout-france-ge...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in digital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people to easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcastin! g, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models