Since headlines began asking whether Eastern Europe is like an "Argentina on the Danube", those of the region's countries that are in better financial shape have contested that grim image, according to dpa. A flurry of reports describing Eastern Europe as "the eye of the next financial storm" have included the Czech Republic and Poland despite their economies being seen as capable of weathering the downturn with less damage than some of their neighbours. As the bad news spreads, traders in far-away financial hubs have been shedding the Czech koruna and Polish zloty alongside currencies in region's troubled spots such as Hungary and Latvia. "The global crisis resembles mad cow disease," the Hospodarske Noviny business daily wrote in a recent opinion piece. "The whole herds are killed off. Nobody is wasting time with differentiating between the healthy and the ill." It did not help when Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek managed to confuse the markets and send the koruna tumbling even further. "Everybody has learned a lesson and is averse to risk," said Ales Michl, a macroeconomic analyst with Raiffeisen bank's Czech subsidiary. "Any hint of a problem ... triggers negative sentiment." Such loans had turned into a nightmare for families, for example in Hungary, when the forint began to plunge. The Czech central bank rushed to correct the mistake, pointing out that Czech banks were never in need of foreign money as they had enough deposits in koruny. Now a meeting of EU's new Eastern members, which precedes the bloc's informal summit on economic crisis in Brussels on Sunday, will reveal whether they can restore a common voice.
