The prime minister returned from the economic summit in Paris to say that agreement had been reached that there would NOT be a common EU fund to bail-out banks in EU member countries.

(This was said to be because Germany, in effect, applied its veto to the idea. German sources said this was because Germany would have been expected to fork up about half the money ...)

Anyway back to Finland, the prime minister was happy about this lack of a common fund because there was no reason for Finland to support countries whose banks were in a mess when ours weren't. (I don't think he actually said "when our's aren't" but that was certainly what he meant).

Well we'll see in time if our banks aren't in any trouble. (I personally think most of them learned from the previous Finnish (and Swedish) banking problems in the early 90's not to lend quite too much money for house purchases so they may well be OK).  However this is quite a strange attitude to take for a country that is always among the first to implement even completely mad EU directives.

Especially perhaps when you consider that a lot of politicians are for NATO membership. Now why we shouldn't provide money for a fund to help other EU countries (and possibly ourselves) but should provide money and forces to help the US fight their wars (Those politicians seem to have forgotten that the head General in NATO has always been an American - which if this is supposed to be a democratic alliance is a farce after over 50 years) is beyond me.