U.K. Can’t Be Trusted with Gold, Top Slovak Party Leader Says
The comments below are an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by Radoslav Tomek
Slovakia’s former premier said parliament should force the central bank to bring back the nation’s gold stored in the UK, as history has shown that allies ‘can hardly be trusted.’
Ex-Premier Robert Fico, who chairs the biggest party in Slovakia, is seeking to hold a special parliamentary session on the issue. The gold isn’t safe in the UK, he said, because of Brexit and a possible global economic crisis.
“You can hardly trust even the closest allies after the Munich Agreement,” he told reporters, referring to a 1938 pact by the UK, Italy, France and Germany, which allowed Hitler to annex a part of Czechoslovakia. “I guarantee that if something happens, we won’t see a single gram of this gold. Let’s do it as quickly as possible.”
Three months before general elections take place in Slovakia, Fico is riding on a wave of nationalist sentiment that has gripped many countries in the European Union’s east, including neighboring Poland and Hungary.
Central bank spokesman Peter Majer declined to comment on Fico’s remarks. Slovakia, which uses the euro, has 31.7 tonnes of gold worth 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion).