Open Europe

Open Europe's fortnightly bulletin of yesterday's date has the following paragraph: Gordon Brown has insisted that Britain will not have to pay for a Greek bailout. However as Britain is a contributor to the IMF, UK taxpayers' money would be used to aid Greece if the plan was put into practice. This is despite an opinion poll published by the French public opinion institute IFOP yesterday, showing that only 22% of UK voters are in favour of a bailout of Greece. Across Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK, 58% of voters disagreed with a bailout. (AFP, 26 March) The opinion poll quoted from an AFP report actually states "...personnes interrogées refusent que leur pays aide financièrement la Grèce "au nom de la solidarité européenne" in plain English they refuse to support funds being advanced in the name of that loathsome concept "european solidarity". Personally, I suspect along with many other UK citizens, I would have no objection to funds spent by the IMF on a bail out. After all, with our present politicians and EU commitments, will Britain not itself be soon knocking at the IMF's door. What percentage of Europeans would support funds for the UK, given its similarly sized deficit in percentage terms, but its non-membership of the Eurozone? Wake up Britain, Open Europe only the day before reported the following "The £6.4 billion (EU) cost this year is more than twice the £3.1billion contributed last year."