HJ: I am always slightly suspicious of anything being reported in the mainstream media. However, it is usually three parts truth mixed with one part misdirection, the classic disinformation recipe. Just which part is truth and which part is fiction is the real question? However, that being said, I think anyone following the Euro saga can, at this point, agree that some sort of collapse is inevitable. Finland is just stating the obvious. – Truth
Finland Prepares for Break-Up of Eurozone
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in Helsinki, The Telegraph – August 17, 2102
Finland is preparing for the break-up of the eurozone, the country’s foreign minister warned today.
The Nordic state is battening down the hatches for a full-blown currency crisis as tensions in the eurozone mount and has said it will not tolerate further bail-out creep or fiscal union by stealth.
“We have to face openly the possibility of a euro-break up,” said Erkki Tuomioja, the country’s veteran foreign minister and a member of the Social Democratic Party, one of six that make up the country’s coalition government.
“It is not something that anybody — even the True Finns [eurosceptic party] — are advocating in Finland, let alone the government. But we have to be prepared,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“Our officials, like everybody else and like every general staff, have some sort of operational plan for any eventuality.”
Mr Tuomioja’s intervention is the bluntest warning to date by a senior eurozone minister. As he discussed the crisis, the minister had a copy of the Economist on his desk. It had a picture of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, reading a fictitious report entitled “How to break up the euro”, with a caption: “Tempted, Angela?”
“This is what people are thinking about everywhere,” said Mr Tuomioja. “But there is a consensus that a eurozone break-up would cost more in the short-run or medium-run than managing the crisis.
“But let me add that the break-up of the euro does not mean the end of the European Union. It could make the EU function better,” he said, describing the dash for monetary union in the 1990s as a vaulting political leap in defiance of economic gravity. Finland has emerged as the toughest member of the eurozone’s creditor bloc as it tries to hold together a motley coalition. It has insisted on collateral from both Greece and Spain in exchange for rescue loans.
The coalition government is on thin ice as voters peel away to eurosceptic parties. The True Finns shattered the political order in last year’s election with 19pc support. “Taxpayers here are extremely angry,” said Timo Soini, the True Finn leader.
