“Interesting contrast with the Fund’s complete official silence on Iceland.”

Well, I think the problem is at the Iceland end. The IMF need to be asked to step in (there are, remember, conditions). You loose a big chunk of your sovereignty for a time. Hungary didn’t really need to think twice given their fragility. Iceland are taking a bit longer, but according to the Reuters report below, they , may be near. Iceland, of course, is not in the EU, so there will be no protocols involved at that level, and no explaining to do to anyone else about why Brussels wasn’t able to help.

When you look at the way the Russians were able to simply walze into Georgia with very little EU reaction, and now the way Hungary has been left to herself, I can imagine some citizens in the Eastern part of the union may be feeling just a little nervous at this point.

A spokeswoman for the Icelandic government said on Monday she could not confirm whether the country had made an official request for financing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”I cannot confirm that,” the spokesoman told Reuters by telephone in response to a Reuters report from Washington which cited an IMF source as saying a request had been made. The official, who asked not to be named, said the IMF executive board met at the weekend to discuss the request by Iceland uynder the fund’s rapid response mechanism. That allows financing to be issued within 10 days.