Pop,Valentina, (2013), “Cyprus ‘business model’ was no mystery to EU”, EUobserver.com, 22 Μαρτίου. Be it the German finance minister, European Central Bank (ECB) officials or the head of the Eurogroup – they all agree on one thing: Cyprus must scrap its “unsustainable business model” based on low taxes and attracting large amounts of bank deposits from abroad, mainly Russia. The Cypriot banking sector, relying largely on deposits, is more than …Read More

Beck, Thorsten, (2013), “Cyprus: What are the alternatives?”, www,voxeu.org, 22 Μαρτίου. Cypriot banks urgently need restructuring and downsizing, but a functioning financial system is necessary to handle Cyprus’s transformation to an economic model not based on an oversized banking sector. This column argues that splitting the Cypriot banking system into a bad ‘legacy’ part and a good forward-looking part seems the only feasible and effective solution to resolve the current …Read More

Whyte, Philip,Tilford, Simon, (2013), “Could Cyprus reignite the eurozone crisis?”, Centre for European Reform, 22 Μαρτίου. Each of the crisis-hit eurozone countries shares some responsibility for its predicament. Italy used membership of the single currency as an excuse to go slow on pushing through much-needed structural reforms of its economy. The Irish and Spanish were excessively relaxed about their booming housing markets. Greece and Portugal were simply not sufficiently converged …Read More

Μανούζας, Σάκης, (2013),  ‘Οι αναδιανεμητικές επιδράσεις, η λογική και τα μειονεκτήματα της απόφασης για την Κύπρο’, www.poleconomix.gr, 21 Μαρτίου 2013.

Momani, Bessma, (2013), “Is Russian Peter Being Used to Pay the Cypriot’s Paul?”, Brookings Institute, 21 Μαρτίου. Cyprus, a small island of one million people, has very large banks. In fact, the banks have the wealth of eight times the entire Cypriot economy. Obviously, this doesn’t add up and that’s because Cyprus has become an offshore financial centre, offering a haven for money transfers, money laundering, and Internet banks. Foreigners …Read More

Bruton, John, (2013), “Cyprus … A Test Case for Future European Banking Policy”, The Centre for European Policy Studies, 21  Μαρτίου. In this CEPS Commentary, the former Irish Prime Minister calls the precedents being set in the Cypriot banking case “troubling” and reflective of a lack of clarity and consistency of thought by both the eurozone Finance Ministers and the European Commission. He welcomes the rejection of the deal by …Read More

Mody, Ashoka, (2013), “Rolling the Dice in Cyprus”,  www.project-syndicate.org, 21 Μαρτίου. The task was never going to be an easy one: impose losses worth about €5.8 billion ($7.5 billion) on lenders to the Cypriot government and depositors with the country’s banks. And now that effort has led Europe to its latest impasse. In marathon negotiations, the Cypriot government, under the supervision of the troika (the European Commission, the European Central …Read More

Aslund, Anders, (2013), “Russia to the Rescue? Why Moscow May Bail out Cyprus”, The Peterson Institute for International Economics, 21 Μαρτίου. Suddenly, Russia has become a central player in the Cypriot financial crisis. On the very evening after the Cypriot parliament rejected a proposed levy on bank deposits that the Cypriot president had previously accepted as a condition for a bailout package of €10 billion, Finance Minister Michael Sarris flew …Read More

Elliott, Douglas, (2013), “Cyprus May Be a Turning Point in the Eurozone Crisis”, Brookings Institute, 20 Μαρτίου. One way or another, the situation is Cyprus likely marks a major turning point in the eurozone crisis. It could be the beginning of true disaster for the zone, eventually leading to a series of sovereign debt defaults and possible exits from the euro area. It could also be the point at which …Read More