Troika robbery of Cyprus depositors

This 7 May 2013 video is called The EU’s Vicious Cyprus Bailout.

Another video used to say about itself:

Cyprus: Bailout Protests 20/3/13 (In Pictures)

Mar 20, 2013

Cypriot MP Andros Kyprianou speaks to the media after voting on a controversial bailout agreement.

Cypriot protesters wave banners during a demonstration against an EU bailout deal.

One of the signs says: “Aphrodite is angry”. Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love, according to mythology was born on the beach of Cyprus from sea foam.

During the Italian Renaissance, painter Botticelli depicted this mythological event.

The speaker of the Cypriot parliament urged MPs to say “no to blackmail”.

The 56-seat legislature buried the bill with 36 votes against and 19 abstentions. One member of parliament was not present.

EU countries said before the vote that they would withhold 10bn euros (£8.5bn) in bailout loans unless depositors in Cyprus shared the cost of the rescue.

Outside parliament, thousands of protesters gathered, holding up banners and chanting “It will not pass”.

Cypriot protesters did what was necessary to show their disgust at proposals to tax their savings.

Cypriot riot police stand guard outside the parliament in the capital, Nicosia, during a protest against an EU bailout deal.

From daily News Line in Britain:

Saturday, 23 March 2013

Agree to robbery with violence or face eviction – Troika warns Cyprus

MPs in Cyprus have been told to agree, by Monday, on a series of bills to raise 6bn euros off the backs of the Cypriot people, or else face the banks being bankrupted and Cyprus being evicted from the EU.

This warning emerged from the Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades talks on the crisis with the same EU-IMF ‘Troika’ that has destroyed Greece and is levelling the economies of Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Meanwhile, the talks on new Russian financial aid for Cyprus have failed, according to Russia’s finance minister. There will be no Russian bailout after Russian investors rejected Cypriot proposals, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said yesterday.

Cyprus had offered Russia – which holds between one third and half of the island’s bank deposits – investments in its national banks and gas projects in return for financial aid.

‘The provision of a state loan was not considered because Europe has established a debt ceiling Cyprus is not allowed to surpass, and a loan would take them past that threshold,’ added Siluanov.

Cyprus has already agreed, with Turkey and Israel, a plan to share out the oil and gas wealth of the Eastern Med, and Russian intervention would have been regarded as an act of war and a serious harming of Turkish and NATO interests.

With 30bn euros of Russian deposits in Cyprus banks, the ruling Stalinist bureaucracy and the group of oligarchs that accept its political supremacy are rapidly being re-educated on the consequences of the crisis of capitalism.

The fear resulting from this crisis was reflected in the statement of the Russian PM Medvedev, contradicting Siluanov. He about turned saying that Russia had not given up the idea of aiding the Cypriot government to overcome the crisis.

The Russian leadership has been caught between the hammer and the anvil of the capitalist crisis.

The drive for a multi-billion dollar loan from Russia came after the Cypriot parliament rejected on Tuesday a tax on bank accounts that international creditors, including the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, had set as a condition for providing a 10-billion euro ($13-billion) bailout for Cyprus.

The Troika insists that their 10bn euro ‘rescue package’ for Cyprus depends on 5.8 billion euros being raised by Cyprus.

Cyprus needs about 17 billion euros in aid to shore up its budget and recapitalise its banks.

Nine bills in all make up the draft legislation that the Cyprus parliament is being told must be accepted.

Meanwhile, the queues are growing outside the cash machines.

The fear is catching. Outside cash machines, queues grew on Thursday and Friday with savers worried about their money – especially after the EU warning that the Cypriot banks may never re-open.

Businesses are now demanding payment in cash, and refusing to accept credit cards.

If there is a majority in the parliament to rob the Cypriot people as the Troika wants, the banks may open on Tuesday and face long queues of depositors seeking to get their cash out while they can.

Millions in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and even the UK are wondering how long it will be before they get the same treatment from the banks.

Cyprus’ fate illustrates how the European Union imposes the dictatorship of the global speculators, banks and corporations on the working class. The EU yesterday continued to demand massive austerity in Cyprus to raise €6 billion ($7.8 billion) in return for a €10 billion bank bailout: here.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Angry Cypriots target bankers as chaos looms

Friday 22 March 2013

by Our Foreign Desk

Thousands of Cypriots took to the barricades outside parliament today to protest against the wreckage that Cypriot bankers and the European Union’s financial manipulators have made of their lives.

There was a constantly changing set of demonstrators, ranging from bank depositors – who have been cast as victims in an unprincipled money-grab – to employees of the Laiki Bank who are threatened with the loss of their jobs in an economy which faces an era of Greek-style poverty and unemployment.

The measures are a bid to dig Cyprus’s bankers out of the mire that their speculation on bank bonds had left them in after the troika insisted on a “haircut” for bondholders of heavily indebted Greek banks as a condition of the Greek bailout.

Not that the bankers were in any way repentant.

Laiki Bank boss Takis Phidias condemned plans being considered by MPs.

“I’m certain that there will be chaos after these Bills are approved,” he said, referring to the possibility of restructuring Laiki.

MPs are pondering seizing a large percentage of deposits in Laiki above the €100,000 (£85,000) insurance limit, perhaps 30 per cent.

Banking officials estimated that such a restructuring would take €3.6 billion (£3bn) off the €5.8bn (£5bn) the country needs to raise to meet troika requirement for a further €10bn (£8.5bn) bailout.

The Bank of Cyprus said it backed confiscating a per centage of bank deposits because there were no alternatives.

The bank warned Cypriot depositors that collapse of the banking sector could lead to the “total loss of all deposits above €100,000 (£85,000) and the immediate sale of all collateral.”

Meanwhile, efforts get help from Russia appeared to have failed.

“We will only be ready to discuss various ways of support after the EU nations and Cyprus work out a final settlement,” said Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

And back at the barricades, most anger was directed at Europe, specifically Germany.

Laiki employee Nikos Tsiangos said: “The bank is finished.

“We’ll lose our jobs and I’m worried about my kids.

“They’ve brought us to the brink. The Europeans wanted to destroy our economy and they’ve done it.”

And there is very little that the EU can say to disprove the charge.

In parliament, MPs have yet to approve any deal and, even then, it must be accepted by the predators of the troika.

Also from the Morning Star:

Fact one. Cyprus is the only country in Europe where the parliament has reflected the will of the people and rejected the vicious austerity assault orchestrated by EU-led financiers.

Fact two. The pound of flesh will be extracted anyway. By force.

European Union imposes bank bailout on Cyprus: here.

Workers’ rage at Cyprus bail out deal: here.

Related articles

• Cyprus lawmakers approve key bills for bailout (thehindu.com)
• Cyprus Shifts To Plan ‘DD’ (Douple-Dip The Large Depositors) (zerohedge.com)
• Cypriot bank workers rally outside parliament as cash hoarding begins (rinf.com)
• Cyprus Students Protest as Banks Stay Closed (on.aol.com)