Cypriot President Denounces Using Cyprus as Guinea Pig for Deposit Theft

April 24, 2013 • 10:19AM

President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades denounced his European Union "partners" for turning Cyprus into a guinea pig to test how to steal people's bank deposits. Speaking at the Nicosia-based conference of EU parliament speakers he said, "Cyprus was treated as an experimental guinea pig for testing the economic theory of enforcing a haircut on bank deposits and the consequent repercussions which were to follow." Quoting Plato he said, "Do not expect justice where might is right."

Complaining about the total lack of EU "solidarity" he charged, "decisions reached beforehand by the interested parties were coercively imposed. I sincerely hope that this precedent in relation to Cyprus is not going to be applied elsewhere in Europe. Although, as is well known, the main raison d'être of a precedent is that it can serve the purpose of establishing norms and guidelines to be repeatedly and universally applied."

Meanwhile Cypriot Finance Minister Harris Georgiades said the sale of the country's gold reserves is not being considered at this point. He said that although it is one of several commitments to the island's international lenders, it is not an issue which takes priority.

Repeatedly declining to speculate on the timing of any disposal, he said the gold sale was "not even the most important, or the issue of the greatest magnitude" in the bailout deal, totalling EU23 billion. "It is something on the agenda, but it is not something we are tackling now," he said.

There was a video debate posted on the Cyprus Mail between two economists, one for staying in the Eurozone, one for leaving. The one for staying in, admitted that behind the demand to have Cyprus sell its gold is the fact that the Eurozone bosses know that as long as Cyprus has gold it enhances the option to leave the Eurozone. The economist supporting leaving the euro said that Cyprus should leave and demand the more than EU3 billion in reserves that are held in the ECB.