The Slovak government stands by its decision to be the only eurozone country to vote against the 110-billion-euro Greek bailout package, dpa cited the country's foreign minister as saying in an interview Sunday. Slovak Foreign Minister Mikulas Dzruinda told the German Press Agency dpa that the deal, brokered in May as the debt-laden Greek government slipped close to bankruptcy, was the misconceived "solidarity of the responsible for the reckless." On August 11 the Slovak parliament voted against ratifying the EU agreement and participating in the bailout package, despite the fact that the country's government had agreed to take part. Slovakia joined the EU in 2004 and the euro itself in 2009, after years of budgetary consolidation efforts. Dzruinda said that Slovakia was within its rights to object to the deal. As prime minister from 1998 to 2006, he oversaw the painful measures to adjust the country's economy from former-Soviet structures to euro-ready open economy. "At that time we had a drop in real incomes of eight per cent. Unemployment climbed up to 20 per cent. At the end however we overhauled the economy and were the first former Eastern-bloc country ready to join the eurozone," he said. -- SPA
