The Island’s MP has spoken out about how the European financial crisis may affect the UK, following the shock announcement on Monday by Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou that he will call a referendum on whether to implement the bail-out deal agreed by European leaders last week.
As the Greek political situation worsened throughout yesterday, stock markets across the world tumbled, (Britain’s top 100 businesses fell in value by £32bn) and there was panic in the EU about the future of the Euro.
Andrew Turner said : “This is a Greek crisis affecting economies across the world. It has been caused by governments forging ahead with a single currency project which always had deep political fault lines. The Greek people have a right to decide on the future of their country – but it may give the EU a result they don’t like. Greece is effectively bankrupt, and they may decide they would be better off outside the Eurozone. Some voices are also calling for the Greek government to pursue Germany for £60bn in unpaid reparations from World War II. These are extremely worrying times.
“The growth figures released yesterday show that the UK economy is now in recovery. The figures are actually better than was forecast, albeit weaker than we would like, however, we cannot recover in isolation. If the Greek situation is not stabilised quickly then the crisis will spread, to Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain.
Banks will collapse and there may be real civil unrest in Europe. This crisis is not of our making, but we will certainly suffer if it is not resolved quickly.”
