Gold Magazine November - December 2013, Issue 32 | Page 37

OPINION

T

he blow suffered by Cyprus in March 2013 following the Eurogroup’s
March 25 decision was a
massive one but it was not
fatal. Unfortunately, the
delays that preceded the Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) reached on March
15 and the subsequent ‘heroic’ no contributed substantially to a deterioration of the
situation and the imposition of an even
worse MoU, the provisions of which we are
today being asked to implement.
The Eurogroup’s decision of March
25 to impose a haircut on deposits in the
country’s two biggest banks was both illprepared and unfair. Cyprus, as a Centre
providing services to international companies, was dealt a serious blow, the effects of
which were correspondingly harmful to the
economy. Worst of all, however, was the
fact that, the image of a stable, prosperous
island that we had built up over many years
was destroyed in 24 hours. The international community considers Cyprus to have
gone bankrupt and it will require a huge
effort by all of us if we are to get back on
the road to growth and regain the trust that
has been lost.
All of this is now yet another part of the
tragic history of Cyprus from 1960 to the
present day and it will undoubtedly be
the subject of many studies in the future.
The objective of the present article is not
to analyse what happened or to complain
about the unfair and unjustifiable manner
in which Cyprus was treated by the EU,
but rather to contribute to the effort to deal
with the crisis and to restart our economy.
My basic position is 6