A Magyar Lobbi 2009. márciusi akciólevele teljes terjedelmében közölte John Kerry szenátor, a Szenátus Külügyi Bizottságának elnöke Wall Street Journal Europe-ban megjelent cikkét a kelet-európai pénzügyi válságról.

Eastern Europe Needs Our Help
By John Kerry

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall and the repressive Communist regimes of Eastern Europe came crashing down to usher in a new era of political and economic freedom. Today, it is Eastern Europe’s banks and economies that are threatening to crash.

The Polish zloty is down 38% against the dollar in the last six months alone. Hungary’s forint is down 32%. Ukraine posted a staggering 34% drop in January industrial output from a year earlier. While the entire world is reeling, right now the eye of the global financial storm has moved to Central and Eastern Europe.

If Western nations do not act quickly to address the snowballing financial crisis that is brewing from Latvia to Hungary, we risk replacing an era of promise and progress in Eastern Europe with one of soaring unemployment, instability and a weakening of the influence and ideals we have spent decades building.

While many Americans are rightly focused on our domestic troubles, we must also recognize the global dimensions of the current crisis. Last week, Latvia became the second government, after Iceland, to collapse as a result of a financial crisis that has already sparked riots in the Baltics and Greece and is likely to be a driving geopolitical force for a long time.

Eastern Europe’s currencies are plummeting as investors instead seek the safety of the dollar and the euro. This means that Eastern European countries, companies and individuals face increasing challenges to pay back their large foreign-currency loans — which only deepens the currency problems to create a vicious circle.

Many of the region’s banks are foreign-owned — in the case of Hungary, more than 80% — and many of those banks are now contemplating unprecedented protectionist steps, pulling back lending operations to their home countries. There is a real danger that, if every country affected by this crisis defines its interests narrowly, several strategically vital countries could fall through the cracks.

America should support World Bank President Robert Zoellick’s call for the EU to lead a coordinated global effort, alongside the IMF, World Bank and other development banks, to support the economies of Central and Eastern Europe.

We have already lost a great deal in the last few months. But two decades of prosperity, democracy and institution-building in Eastern Europe is one investment that America must not allow to go up in smoke.

— Mr. Kerry, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A cikk azért volt jelentős a Lobbi olvasói számára, mert a 2008–2009-es pénzügyi válság idején Magyarország forintja fél év alatt 32%-ot vesztett értékéből, s Kerry szenátor az amerikai vezetést a kelet-európai bankrendszer — benne a magyar bankszektor 80%-ban külföldi tulajdonú része — összehangolt nemzetközi támogatására sürgette.

Forrás: Magyar Lobbi, 2009. március, 6. (John Kerry, Wall Street Journal Europe, 2009. március.)