Prime minister Rõivas: Greece leaving eurozone would be a security threat
Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas said Estonia would have to pay a much greater price if Greece were to leave the Eurozone, than footing part of the bill for the new bailout agreement, as Greece has also become a security issue.
"Yesterday Greece managed to reach the first milestone, when its parliament, with the support of three fourths of deputies, passed the first acts necessary for starting negotiations, and in the coming days they have to get to the next acts," Rõivas said in front of the Parliament on Thursday, and added that this is the first urgent step taken by Greece to restore trust.
According to him, the financial damage to Estonia if Greece left the eurozone could be measured in hundreds of millions of euros, and such a decision would have a negative impact on the security of Estonia. "If Europe turns its back on each other's problems, turns against each other, then the independence of Estonia here on the brink of the Western world would be among the first victims," Rõivas said.
"An insolvent and failed state will become unpredictable in its politics and be susceptible to outside influences, including those from Russia," Rõivas said in an interview with Eesti Päevaleht.
"Could people actually imagine a situation where some southern European countries would ask why do we even need the Baltics and Poland in NATO? Why don't we exclude them and then we'd have a buffer zone between NATO and Russia," he said, adding that if all held such narrow-minded views, all that Estonia has worked for for the past two decades would become worthless.
Editor: M. Oll