outside looking in
THE VIEW
FROM STRASBOURG
The Troika Under Fire
During the Plenary Session of the
European Parliament in Strasbourg
on 18 April, MEPs roundly condemned
the handling of the Cyprus bailout
programme, blaming the Eurogroup
for its appalling communication, the
Commission for not defending insured
depositors, some member states for
their ‘colonial’ approach when addressing
eurozone troubles and politicians for
using double standards.
Taking the floor to open the debate,
Commissioner Olli Rehn said that
the Commission would have preferred a more gradual adjustment
for Cyprus but since member states
were only committing €10 billion this
was not possible. He went on to say
that it was ”time to stop the blame
game”.
Jean-Paul Gauzes (EPP France)
,
said that the Eurogroup’s appalling
communication was central to the
fiasco. He also blamed the EU insti-
tutions for not being vigilant enough
and Cypriot banks for having built up
too much risk.
Hannes Swoboda (S&D, Austria)
criticized the Council and more particularly Germany for behaving in a
“near colonial way”. He also called
on the Commission to disband the
Troika.
Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE, Belgium)
said that it was essential to find out
exactly what went wrong, adding
that the ECB, the Troika and the
Limassol, Cyprus
There is no place in the world for Russians
to come to where they can feel as safe as
they do here. They can have their children
here, the children can go to school and
they can live in a Russian community.
No wealthy guy is going to send his
wife somewhere she doesn’t have other
Russians to talk to. This place, no matter
what, is here to stay.
THE
TH VIEW FROM THE MEDIA
“Cypriots may bemoan the inequities
of their rough treatment, as might
a bunch of wealthy Russians who
mistook the island for a reliable financial center and failed to yank their
money when they could. For the rest
of Europe, the implications should
be obvious. Anyone who leaves un-
Cyprus. Cyprus was being used as
an excuse to attack national fiscal
sovereignty he said.
Nigel Farage (EFD, UK) accused the
Commission of criminal behaviour,
robbing people to prop up the euro
project. No one has confidence in
the euro, he concluded.
Laurence Stassen (NI, Netherlands)
said that the only solution for Cyprus
was for it to leave the Eurozone, adding that the Netherlands should not
be paying out further for the country.
“
THE VIEW
FROM
LIMASSOL
ANONYMOUS
RUSSIAN WOMAN
Eurogroup president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, had difficult questions to
answer. If these answers were not
forthcoming then the EP should set
up a committee of inquiry he said.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Greens/EFA,
France) said that the real solution
for Cyprus was to reunite the island
in order to unleash growth potential
and investment.
Jan Zahradil (ECR, Czech Republic)
said the real problem was much
wider than what was happening in
insured deposits in a euro-area bank
is on notice that their money can
and will be taken from them, if that is
what’s demanded by the troika of the
IMF, the European Commission and
the European Central Bank.”
Bloomberg, Jonathan Weil,
March 29 2013
28 Gold the international investment, finance & professional services magazine of cyprus
”
“If the eurozone refuses to offer any
further help, there must surely be a
greater temptation to withdraw from
the euro and default on sovereign
debt in a classic restructuring deal
with the IMF... It is traumatic, but
countries usually recover after a couple of years. The crucial point for the
Cypriot people is that the cost-benefit calculus is moving in that direction.
Whether they have understood this
is another matter. They may in due
course as the ghastly reality of Troika
policy hits them.”
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard,
The Telegraph, April 12, 2013