EU welcomes ratification of bailout fund by Slovakia

The European Union has welcomed the ratification of the Eurozone bailout fund, called European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) by the parliament of Slovakia Thursday only two days after it had rejected it.\"The EFSF is fully operational after Slovakia\'s ratification,\" said the President of the EU Council Herman van Rompuy and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in a joint statement last night.\"The EFSF provides us with a stronger, more flexible tool to defend the financial stability of the euro area. This is in the clear interest of every one of the 17 Member States directly concerned, as well as for the wider European Union,\" they noted.Slovakia was the last of the 17 Eurozone member states to approve the expansion of the lending capacity of ESFS to 440 billion euro in order to deal with the debt crisis.On his part, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek welcomed the ratification and said it will \"contribute greatly to the stability of the euro area and will help contain the sovereign debt crisis.\"