The vote was to expand the power of the European Central Bank to create a larger bailout fund through the EFSF and all 17 nations that use the euro as a currency had to approve. Slovakia has now thrown a monkey wrench into the bailout plans of the EU. New York Times: With 55 lawmakers voting for the measure, 9 against it and 60 abstaining, the Slovak governing coalition failed to muster the necessary votes to pass the plan that would have required Slovakia to contribute roughly $10 billion in debt guarantees. But the country's leading opposition party said after the government fell that it would be willing to discuss support for the fund, pointing to the eventual approval of the deal. European officials in Brussels were counting on a political solution, but also weighing the possibility of some kind of messy workaround if Slovakia failed to pass the measure. In a news conference after the vote, the leader of the opposition Smer party, Robert Fico, said that the "government failed in...(Read Full Post)