Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from The Telegraph (UK) 15 February 2009 If mishandled by the world policy establishment, this debacle is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Götterdämmerung. Austria's finance minister Josef Pröll made frantic efforts last week to put together a €150bn rescue for the ex-Soviet bloc. Well he might. His banks have lent €230bn to the region, equal to 70pc of Austria's GDP.

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See also Next Wave of Banking Crisis to come from Eastern Europe by F. William Engdahl.