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Will Cyprus Stay in the Euro or Not?
24 March 2013
(EIRNS)—The situation in Cyprus remains on the wire, whether Cyprus will be forced at the point of a gun to capitulate or will there be a move to break up the euro. As of yet the Eurogroup finance ministers will not start deliberating until 6 PM tomorrow, Brussels time. As of this writing large numbers of demonstrators have been gathering outside the Cypriot Parliament. Meanwhile, last night the Cypriot parliament passed bills involving a solidarity fund, capital controls and the restructuring the country’s banks. Unnamed sources said that the only the question of the size of the savings expropriation is to be discussed on Saturday. The legislation includes the winding up of Laiki Bank, where anyone with a depositors accounts over 100,000 could lose up to a rumored 20-25 percent. This will not be debated until the President and party leaders return from Brussels, where they are to present the plan for approval by the Eurogroup, which could happen as late as Monday, if at all. It is not only experts from the infamous "Troika" of the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund who are plaguing Cyprus, but also from the British Treasury, which has sent British treasury official Tom Scholar with a team of experts to Cyprus after the Nicosia government "accepted" their offer of "technical assistance." Scholar is said to be an expert in public finance and international issues and had played a key technical role in implementing the British 2008 bailout of Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. Britain is not part of the Eurozone. The head of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus told the Greek Daily Realnews that the country shoud leave the euro. "It’s not easy, but we should devote to this as much time as was spent on entering the eurozone," Archbishop Chrysostomos II said in an interview with the Greek daily Realnews. "The euro cannot last. I’m not saying that it will crumble tomorrow, but with the brains that they have in Brussels, it is certain that it will not last in the long term, and the best is to think about how to escape it," he said. The Turkish Minister for EU affairs Egemen Bagis said that Turkey could offer Cyprus the use of the of the Turkish lira in Greek Cyprus as part of the transition if it decides to leaves the euro. Nigel Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, has urged British savers with money in Spanish bank accounts to withdraw their cash to avoid being hit with any future attempts by Eurogroup finance ministers to tax savings. Speaking at a party conference, he said, "There is going to be a big flight of money and that flight of money won’t just be from Cyprus, it will be from the other Eurozone countries too. Remember there are 750,000 British people who own properties, or who live, many of them in retirement down in Spain." He warned people living in Southern Europe "Get your money out of there while you’ve still got a chance." [dea] |