Back from the brink: EU ministers approve €10bn bailout deal to save Cyprus

Back from the brink: EU ministers approve €10bn bailout deal to save Cyprus

Under the new agreement the country's second-biggest bank will be wound down as holders of deposits of more than €100,000 face big losses

An 11th-hour deal with the EU, which has saved the Cypriot economy from the brink, will see investors with more than €100,000 in the nation’s largest banks forfeit a large chunk of their deposits.

The punishing deal – which has been approved by the eurozone finance ministers – will allow the country to receive the €10bn (£8.5bn) bailout it needed before the European Central Bank pulled funding and sent the island on the path to bankruptcy and a possible exit from the single currency.

Under the new agreement, all bank deposits under €100,000 will be secured and guaranteed by the state. The country's second-biggest bank, The Popular Bank of Cyprus – known as Laiki – will be wound down whilst holders of deposits of more than €100,000 face big losses.

Laiki will be split into good and bad banks, with its healthy assets eventually absorbed into Bank of Cyprus.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/back-from-the-brink-eu-ministers-approve-10bn-bailout-deal-to-save-cyprus-8547104.html



Cyprus bailout terms open nightmare scenario .
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/europe/cyprus-bailout-terms-open-nightmare-scenario-1.1331790

Cypriot drama puts Ireland’s response to its banking crisis into new perspective
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/cypriot-drama-puts-ireland-s-response-to-its-banking-crisis-into-new-perspective-1.1335831

Our View: Our inept Central Bank governor must go

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/opinions/our-view-our-inept-central-bank-governor-must-go/20130325

EU billigt Rettungspaket - Zypern entgeht Staatspleite
http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/1356757/Zypern?_vl_backlink=/home/index.do


Accord à l'arraché sur le sauvetage de Chypre

http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2013/03/25/20002-20130325ARTFIG00328-accord-a-l-arrache-sur-le-sauvetage-de-chypre.php

President: Cyprus central bank to impose capital controls when banks reopen

ICOSIA, Cyprus — All banks in Cyprus except the two largest will reopen for business Tuesday — more than a week after they shut down to prevent a run by customers — now that the country has clinched a vital bailout deal.

The central bank will impose some limits on financial transactions, the country’s president, Nicos Anastasiades said, but assured the public that restrictions would be temporary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/cyprus-secures-broad-agreement-with-creditors-toward-securing-bailout/2013/03/24/509e71ae-94e1-11e2-95ca-dd43e7ffee9c_story.html

Cyprus rescue signals new line on bailouts

The €10bn Cypriot rescue marks a watershed in how the eurozone deals with failing banks, with European leaders now committed to “pushing back the risks” of paying for bank bailouts from taxpayers to private investors, the chairman of the group of eurozone finance ministers has warned.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of the eurogroup, was speaking hours after Cyprus reached an 11th-hour €10bn bailout deal with international lenders that avoids a controversial levy on bank accounts but will force large losses on big deposits in the island’s two largest lenders.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/68c9c18e-955e-11e2-a151-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2OSVDplxi


Cyprus wrestles with new rescue deal: ‘They will destroy us’
Cypriots fear years of financial ruin as uncertainty reigns amid questions about when banks will reopen.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/03/25/cyprus_wrestles_with_new_rescue_deal_they_will_destroy_us.html

Cyprus bail-out: live
Cypriot finance minister Michalis Sarris warns the country faces hards times and said large depositors could lose up to 40pc of their savings as banks stay shuttered until Thursday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/debt-crisis-live/9953844/Cyprus-bailout-live.html

Big Cypriot depositors face cut of up to 40%, minister says
Capital controls to prevent large outflows of cash from island to last a ‘matter of weeks’

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/big-cypriot-depositors-face-cut-of-up-to-40-minister-says-1.1339081


A euro in Nicosia will no longer be worth the same as a euro in Frankfurt
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc0159dc-9301-11e2-b3be-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2OSVDplxi


Head of Cyprus's Biggest Bank Resigns
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/business/global/europe-officials-seek-to-contain-cyprus-damage.html?_r=0

Alexis Tsipras is the head of Greece's opposition Syriza party, which stands a good chance of winning snap elections on Jan. 25. "On Tuesdays the euro, on Fridays the drachma," his opponents have said sneeringly of his contradictory statements.

Greek Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras has many observers across Europe scratching their heads. What does the head of the radical left party, who may become Greece's next prime minister, really want -the euro or the drachma?


http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/aims-of-greek-politician-alexis-tsipras-remain-a-mystery-in-europe-a-1011288.html

Greece news live: Britain gets 'slap in the face' as Brussels defies Cameron opposition over Greek loans

• AEP: IMF stuns Europe with call for massive Greek debt relief
• Merkel has been kinder to Greece than German voters would be
• Greek parliament to vote on sweeping reforms
• Commission will press ahead with use of EFSM despite UK opposition
• John Redwood: Brussels plans are "outrage" and "slap in the face"#

13.39
Merkel is being more lenient to Greeks than her voters
Asa Bennett has crunched the numbers and found that despite calls that Germany has Athens on the rack, Chancellor Merkel is far more generous towards Greece than her own voters seem to allow.
Read his full analysis here.

13.33
Sweden to debate EFSM
Along with Britain, the Swedes are also the big dissenters to the plans to use their money to help out Greece. Finance minister Magdalena Andersson has said his parliament will now have to debate the plans.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11738150/Greece-news-live-Britain-gets-slap-in-the-face-as-Brussels-defies-Cameron-opposition-over-Greek-loans.html

The Greek crisis is shaking the IMF to its core

The Greek crisis, having shaken the eurozone to its core, is likely to have a similar seismic effect on another massive institution, the IMF.
The International Monetary Fund's exposure is small compared with the Eurozone.

In the 2010 bailout it paid out over €20.7bn and in the following 2012 rescue it contributed €11.6bn
The real threat is to its credibility as the world's biggest multinational lender.

It is a story of conflict with Europe - and with itself.

On July 7 IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said that the situation in Greece demanded a restructuring of debt.

Chief economist Olivier Blanchard told the BBC a few days later that the IMF had been privately urging the European creditors for several months that sizeable debt relief was the only credible option.

By going public the IMF hoped it could swing the argument against the European creditors, in particular Germany who believed debt forgiveness was unacceptable.

In what was obviously a co-ordinated move US Treasury secretary Jack Lew came out with a near identical statement.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33537445

How the Greek crisis changed Europe forever

Amid drama and disagreement, a third bail-out for Greece is on the way to being secured, but the future is as uncertain as ever
Greece's debt drama almost took an unexpected turn this week.

Just six months after Alexis Tsipras strode into the presidential palace to be sworn in as prime minister, he was nowhere to be seen in the parliamentary chamber as the country’s 300 MPs gathered to vote on the country’s future.

Greece needed a third bail-out. The deal on offer was €86bn, but the costs were huge.

Many described the terms, which included sacking re-hired public sector workers, tearing up Sunday trading laws and putting a “for sale” sign on €50bn of Greek assets as “humiliating”.

The midnight deadline for the so-called “prior actions” to get through parliament had already passed in Athens. Around 1,500 miles north west in Berlin’s time zone, it was fast approaching.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11747851/How-the-Greek-crisis-changed-Europe-forever.html

Comment- PM Alexis Tsipras it is one thing and another being in government- we have contributed and assisted several of your Heads of state to work EU Issues, the Greek and International media do not write about - the EU Institutions not not acknowledge and write about - yet how is used/abused and applied. It could have been applied to save Greece and its people a very great deal of pain and sufferings.

Lessons Greece Can Learn From Seychelles
By Manu Sharma
• July 21, 2015


Greece should look to Seychelles for lessons on rejuvenating its ailing economy.

Oxi it is! In early July, the Greek electorate delivered a thumbs-down to sermons from lenders, media, international bodies and diplomats. Greeks chose not to give in when placed under overwhelming pressure from “Team Euro.”

The Greek debate means all sorts of things to people of all hues. Chiefly, the internationalists and regionalists have hijacked an economic debate and turned it into a philosophical one. This debate may decide the future and form of the European Union (EU), the biggest experiment on regional integration in history. While this philosophical battle rages on in the eurozone, the Greek people are on the sidelines awaiting their dreary fate.

Among all the hoopla about a Greek default, “Grexit” and Greek referendum, a routine press release by the World Bank went unnoticed. Seychelles, a tiny Indian Ocean archipelago, was promoted to a high income category by the World Bank in the first week of July. What is the relevance of Seychelles to the Greek crisis?

- See more at: http://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/lessons-greece-can-learn-from-seychelles-31079/#sthash.4hssnyN8.e6sE41sA.dpuf

Varoufakis reveals cloak and dagger 'Plan B' for Greece, awaits treason charges

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis claims he was authorised by Alexis Tsipras to look into a parallel payment system

A secret cell at the Greek finance ministry hacked into the government computers and drew up elaborate plans for a system of parallel payments that could be switched from euros to the drachma at the "flick of a button" .

The revelations have caused a political storm in Greece and confirm just how close the country came to drastic measures before premier Alexis Tsipras gave in to demands from Europe's creditor powers, acknowledging that his own cabinet would not support such a dangerous confrontation.


Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister, told a group of investors in London that a five-man team under his control had been working for months on a contingency plan to create euro liquidity if the European Central Bank cut off emergency funding to the Greek financial system, as it in fact did after talks broke down and Syriza called a referendum.

The transcripts were leaked to the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. The telephone call took place a week after he stepped down as finance minister.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11764018/Varoufakis-reveals-cloak-and-dagger-Plan-B-for-Greece-awaits-treason-charges.html