Cyprus is done for- their president under fire for prior knowledge, faces FOUR DAYS to save country

Young_Chitlin
Young_Chitlin Members Posts: 23,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
By ALLAN HALL, JAMES CHAPMAN and JILL REILLY

Cypriot president Nikos Anastasiades 'warned' close friends of the financial crisis about to engulf his country so they could move their money abroad, it was claimed on Friday. The respected Cypriot newspaper Filelftheros made the allegation which was picked up eagerly by German media. Germans are angry at the way their country has been linked to the Nazis and ? by Cypriots angry at the defunct rescue deal which called for a levy on all savings. The Cyprus newspaper did not say how much money was moved abroad but quoted sources saying the president 'knew about the possible closure of the banks' and tipped off close friends who were able to move vast sums abroad.

Italian media said the 4.5 billion euros left the island in the week before the crisis. Meanwhile sources close to the 'troika' - the IMF, ECB and EU Commission responsible for trying to create a viable rescue deal before Monday - said that attempts to put together a 'plan B' rescue package had failed. 'The coming hours will determine the country's future,' a government spokesman in Nicosia said.

Nearly a full week after the European Union agreed to a €10 billion rescue for the island country of one million people the Cypriot parliament still hasn't approved any new deal. Nicosia hoped to raise its €5.8 billion ($7.53 billion) share of the bailout through a fund based on a portfolio of government assets. Early Friday afternoon, Greek TV station Skai-TV and the newspaper Ta Nea reported the troika has rejected the proposal following a meeting with president Anastasiades.

Troika officials reportedly told the leader it was unlikely the country could raise the funding shortfull with the plan.
They are reportedly sticking to the demand that Cyprus impose a deposit tax, but only on accounts holding sums above €100,000.
German government patience is said to be 'wearing very thin,' with Chancellor Merkel reportedly seething at seeing herself caricatured as ? on demonstrators' placards in Cyprus. At a special meeting of her party group in parliament on today Mrs Merkel warned that Cyprus' partners may soon 'lose ' and that the country should 'not try to test the troika.'

News magazine Der Spiegegl said participants in the meeting quoted Merkel as saying that Cyprus appears not to have recognized that the business model it has used up until now has ended. At the same time, she added: 'We want Cyprus to remain in the euro zone.' She also said that she hopes the situation in Cyprus doesn't lead to a 'crash'.

Angry crowds demonstrated in Cyprus today as leaders battled to prevent total economic collapse in four days time. Cyprus's government urged lawmakers this afternoon to 'take the big decisions' - MPs are due to start voting on a series of bills that aim to raise the funds the country needs to secure an international bailout before their emergency funding runs out on Monday, triggering a possible exit from the Euro. 'The next few hours will determine the future of the country,' government spokesman Christos Stylianides said in a televised statement before parliament was due to debate.

Outraged protestors gathered outside parliament - Despo Pambaka, 28, a customer services manager at Laiki Bank told The Telegraph: 'I never expected this would happen. They are trying to take our lives, our money. Even in 1974 in the war (with Turkey) they didn't rob us of our deposits. This is not the Europe that we went into. Germany showed her real face. We will not accept it.' This morning it emerged that British savers with Laiki Bank could get the same deal as their Cypriot counterparts.

Laiki Bank, which has three UK branches is not covered by the FSA compensation scheme, unlike Bank of Cyprus, meaning their customers could be hit by the bank restructures. Meanwhile Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras announced that a Greek banking group had begun acquiring the Greek units of Cypriot banks - this would safeguard all the deposits of Greek citizens in Cypriot banks.

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  • Young_Chitlin
    Young_Chitlin Members Posts: 23,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Last night an emergency Bill submitted to parliament gave the finance minister or central bank governor the right to impose capital controls on banks – a ban on moving cash outside the country, which would be a serious blow to the single market. The European Central Bank warned it may halt funding on Monday if Cyprus fails to come up with a viable rescue plan.

    As horrified islanders faced new limits on cashpoint withdrawals and a ban on taking money out of the country, a poll showed more than two-thirds now want to leave the single currency and turn to Russia for help. Prime Minister David Cameron discussed the financial crisis in Cyprus with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call this morning.
    Downing Street said that Mr Cameron and Mr Putin 'agreed that they hoped a solution could be found to the crisis', but added that Cyprus took up only a small part of the 30-minute call, which also touched on Syria, the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in Northern Ireland and St Petersburg and BP's Arctic oil deal with Russian company

    There is growing concern that Germany’s attempt to strongarm the Mediterranean island, already blamed for undermining confidence in banks across the Continent, is turning into a geopolitical blunder of historic proportions. Even if an emergency bank restructure – which could mean big deposit holders losing almost half of their savings – goes ahead, Cyprus will need to raise billions by next week to avoid collapse.

    Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut its rating on Cyprus to CCC, which means it risks defaulting on its debts. Russia's prime minister says Moscow will only help Cyprus out financially if the country's new money-raising measures get the backing of the European Union. Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that Russia "hasn't closed the door, hasn't said `no' to Cyprus. His comments come after Cyprus' finance minister left the Russian capital without a hoped-for deal. Cypriot authorities are putting the final touches to a plan they hope will convince international lenders, including its European partners, to provide bailout money to avoid a bankruptcy within days.

    Cyprus has until Monday to secure a deal after the European Central Bank warned it would stop providing the country's banks with liquidity on that day if no package is agreed. Russian depositors have huge sums in Cyprus’s banks, which critics say have become a haven for tax evasion and money laundering. A poll for a Cypriot TV station showed that 67.3 per cent say the country should leave the euro and tighten relations with Russia, which is desperate to regain influence in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. As extra police were drafted in to control angry crowds outside the parliament in Nicosia, protesters brandished placards reading ‘No to Fourth ? ’ and ‘Better die on your feet than live on your knees’.

    The Bank of Cyprus, the country’s biggest bank, warned the island needed a ‘liquidity lifeline’ which would make the difference between ‘salvation or destruction’. Cyprus Popular Bank announced limit on ATM withdrawals of 260 euros per customer. Banks, which have been shut all week to prevent mass withdrawals, are to stay closed until Tuesday. Eurozone finance officials acknowledged being ‘in a mess’, and discussed imposing capital controls to insulate the region from a possible Cypriot collapse. One described emotions as running ‘very high’ and referred to ‘open talk’ of Cyprus leaving the eurozone. In an unprecedented snub, Cyprus decided not to take part in a conference call with EU leaders.

    ‘If Cyprus does not even feel that they can attend the call it is a big problem for us,’ one French representative said. It is thought that Cyprus’s ‘Plan B’ to avoid bankruptcy will mean depositors with account balances in excess of 100,000 euros would be hit hard. Cyprus Popular Bank and the Bank of Cyprus would be split to create a ‘bad bank’. Insured deposits – below the EU ceiling of 100,000 euros, supposedly guaranteed in the event of a bank collapse – would go into a ‘good bank’ and not sustain losses, while uninsured deposits would go into the bad bank and be frozen until assets could be sold. Losses to depositors could reach 40 per cent.

    John Cridland, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said last night that the proposal for a levy on bank deposits in Cyprus had ‘created a real mess’ and ‘undermined the confidence of ordinary depositors’. He added: ‘The events are a stark reminder that not only has the eurozone crisis not gone away but also how much Europe and the eurozone countries in particular, are going through a period of rapid transformation.’ Asked if the bailout row would sour relations between Moscow and the EU, Sergei Aleksashenko, a former bank governor and now an economist at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, replied: ‘It’s not possible to damage what does not exist.’
  • Young_Chitlin
    Young_Chitlin Members Posts: 23,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • jono
    jono Members Posts: 30,280 ✭✭✭✭✭
    War is looming.....Europe will erupt soon....this will be interesting. These banks and the politicians are going to start WWIII over there.
  • Young_Chitlin
    Young_Chitlin Members Posts: 23,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Last-Minute Cyprus Bailout Will Shut Down Bank and Tax Biggest Accounts

    By: Max Read

    A late-night agreement between European finance ministers and the government of Cyprus will keep Cyprus in the eurozone and bail out the struggling island nation—by levying an enormous one-time tax on the biggest deposits in one of its banks. Under the deal, the Cyprus Popular Bank, or Laiki, will be divided into a "good" bank and a "bad" bank; the Goofus will be slowly wound down and closed while the Gallant will be folded into the country's largest bank, Bank of Cyprus.

    Deposits of over 100,000 euros in both banks will be subject to a haircut of as much as 30 percent—but unlike last week's controversial proposed plan, this deal will not tax smaller depositors. The Cyprus bailout deal has been difficult to reach for a variety of reasons, chief among them the country's desire to preserve its banking sector, the engine of its economy, and the eurozone's desire to punish the Russian oligarchs widely believed to be the largest depositors in Cyprus' banks.

    ("In my view, the stealing of what has already been stolen continues," Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said in response to the latest deal.) This bailout agreement should allow Cyprus to (sort of) remain in the eurozone (against the wishes of the majority of its citizens; "luckily," no one in Cyprus is voting on the package) and eventually recover its banking income without directly taking money from the little guy—but years of enforced austerity will hurt him just as badly. No one's happy. At least they're less unhappy than they were last week?
  • perspective@100
    perspective@100 Members Posts: 1,862 ✭✭✭✭
    Yooo, this ? is so ill, thats why I dont ? with banks!!!
  • WYRM
    WYRM Members Posts: 993 ✭✭✭✭
    European Trade Union was a bunk idea to start, greed will always prevail, larger countries feeding off the economies of the smaller nation. You don't have to be annexed or occupied to be owned by another country these days, it's more like wars or battles of attrition.