EU turns down Hungary's $240B plan

BRUSSELS, March 2 (UPI) -- The European Union has said no to a proposal by Hungary to assemble a $240 billion bailout for Eastern European countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a sweeping bailout proposal wasn't appropriate, The Washington Post reported Monday.

"Saying that the situation is the same for all Central and Eastern European states … I don't see that," Merkel said after a summit meeting Sunday in Brussels. "You cannot compare Slovenia or Slovakia with Hungary," she said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany proposed the rescue package. On Sunday, he said "large-scale defaults" would occur in counties that have spent years recovering from communist economic policies, the newspaper said.

"We should not allow a new Iron Curtain to be set up and divide Europe into two parts," Gyurcsany said before the summit began.

But, Czech Republic Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said he didn't want "a Europe divided along a north-south or an east-west line."

Poland and the Czech Republic said they didn't need to be rescued from default and resented being lumped into a block of countries requesting aid, the report said.