Slovak PM ties EU debt rescue vote to confidence motion

Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova said today she would tie a parliamentary vote on the eurozone's debt rescue fund to a vote of confidence in her coalition government later in the day.

"I announced to my coalition partners that I will tie today's vote on our future in Europe with a confidence vote," Radicova said in a decision that follows deadlocked talks in her four-party coalition on expanding the fund.

"It's unacceptable for a prime minister to allow the isolation of Slovakia," she told reporters after the liberal coalition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party insisted it would vote against the crucial eurozone deal.

Parliament is to convene at 1 p.m. local time (1100 GMT).

"I'm sorry our coalition partner did not accept an offer of a possible compromise," Radicova said, adding she hoped the changes to strengthen the European Financial Stability Facility could be salvaged with opposition support in a repeat vote.

"It's my great wish to have a successful vote today but if it's not successful, we'll have to hold a repeat vote," said Radicova.

Radicova, whose coalition has a majority of 79 seats in the 150-seat parliament, needs either the 22 votes from the SaS or help from the left-wing opposition powerhouse Smer-SD of former prime minister Robert Fico.

Fico said he would abstain from voting but he may yet be open to persuasion in a repeat vote, which legal opinion believes is possible.

The make-or-break vote comes after the 16 other eurozone members approved changes to revamp the 440-billion-euro ($589-billion) EFSF, set up in 2010 after Greece was bailed out in May that year to save it from default. Malta got the ratification process through Parliament late yesterday.

Eurozone leaders agreed in July to boost the EFSF's powers in the hope of stemming the fallout from the eurozone's deepening sovereign debt crisis which now threatens the euro project, the bloc's banking system and the economy.