Leave it to the Cypriots to use Russia to subvert the EU, at
just the moment that they've declared bankruptcy
and taken over the presidency of the EU.
Only they are cunning enough to show Europe just
how sh*tty Brussels really is.
Checkit: Testosterone pit
The Incredibly Ballooning Bailout Of Cyprus
Thursday, October 4, 2012 at 8:05PM
Cypriot President Christofias dug in his heels. On Greek TV. Not behind closed doors with the Troika, the austerity gang from the European Commission, the IMF, and the ECB that have performed such miracles in Greece. But as Cyprus veers toward bankruptcy, his game of playing the Russians against the Troika has fallen apart, banks are in worse condition than imagined, and the bailout amounts jumped again. How can a tiny country get in so much trouble in such a short time?
The real-estate and construction bubble, fed by corruption and abetted by banks, burst two years ago. Home sales and prices have collapsed. Some 130,000 homeowners (in a country of 840,000 souls) are tangled up in a nationwide title-deed scandal [Another Eurozone Country Bites the Dust]. The Troika estimated that 50,000 homes would be dumped on the market—though only 4,876 homes were sold during the first nine months of the year! Losses have gutted banks. Unemployment has reached record levels. And the construction industry, once a major employer, is being annihilated.
The index of building contracts, after a two-year downhill slide, has reached the lowest point in its history, and “activity is expected to continue dropping,” lamented the Federation of Associations of Building Contractors (OSEOK). Contractors are going out of business. Over the last four months, the morass has deepened. And now there are only enough pending construction projects for seven months, and after that, there are no projects.
Locked out from the financial markets since early summer 2011, Cyprus was bailed out by Russia last November with a €2.5 billion loan. In June, as the banks began to topple under a mountain of Greek debt and rotting mortgages, Cyprus asked for a bailout. The Troika took a look and figured €6 billion for the banks and €4 billion for the government. €10 billion in total. Alas, in August, Central Bank Governor Panicos Demetriades told parliament that the banks alone would need €12 billion! And the rumor consensus has settled on €15 billion for both the banks and the government.
Then Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov spilled the beans last week: Cyprus would indeed seek a €15 billion bailout from the Troika, and an additional €5 billion from Russia, for a total of €20 billion. A vertigo-inducing 107% of GDP.
But he cautioned that Russia and the Troika would need to coordinate the loans—thus throwing a monkey wrench into Christofias’ efforts to use the negotiations with Russia as a lever against the Troika to get a better deal and more lenient conditions.
