Opšti topik o EU (ex kriza Evrozone)

[Аврам Гојић]

Lokalci slikali CEO-a Laiki banke kako ulazi u zgradu parlamenta. Cenim da je nekakvo saopstenje imminent. Postoji neka vrsta konsenzusa da ce se ici na restrukturiranje banke na dobru i losu. Procitao sam podatak da je kiparska centralna banka izlozena prema Laiki banci za 9 milijardi evra.

[Аврам Гојић]

e pa pocinje polako

CYPRUS CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR TO MAKE STATEMENT SHORTLY: GOVT

[nautilus]

Drzava bi mogla iskoristiti infrastrukturu jedne od banaka koje su pukle tako sto ce napraviti kiparsku verziju SDK, samo da odrzi buduci platni promet u zivotu. Sa kreditima i stednjom je tamo ionako zavrseno na duze vreme.

[Аврам Гојић]

ocekivano:

CYPRUS POPULAR BANK ANNOUNCES RESTRICTIONS ON ATM WITHDRAWALS OF 260 EUROS PER CUSTOMER DAILY

[Dr Arslanagić]

Krugmanova kolumna u NYT

Cyprus: The Sum of All FUBARAt this point the Cyprus situation is pretty clear — and clarity does not bring reassurance. In fact, it looks as if Cyprus has managed to combine in one place everything that has gone wrong elsewhere.1. Runaway banking. Cyprus has a huge banking system — assets around 8 times GDP — based on a business model of attracting offshore money with high rates and good opportunities for tax avoidance/evasion.I’ve done some asking around, and cleared up something that was puzzling me. Officially, only about 40 percent of the deposits in Cypriot banks are from nonresidents, which would imply resident deposits of almost 500 percent of GDP, which is crazy. But the answer is that I do not think that word “resident” means what you think it means. Some of the money is from wealthy expats living in Cyprus; much of it is from rich people who have resident status without, you know, actually living there. So we should think of Cypriot deposits as mainly coming from non-Cypriots, attracted by that business model.And the business model only works until there’s a big loss somewhere; since Cypriot banks were investing in Greece and in their own domestic real estate bubble, doom was inevitable. Which brings me to:2. Big domestic real estate bubble, Spain or Ireland-sized. Not yet fully deflated, which means lots more losses to come. And the combination of the real estate bubble and the income from dodgy banking also led to:3. Massive overvaluation, with Cypriot prices and costs having risen much more than in the rest of the euro area. In 2008 the current account deficit was more than 15 percent of GDP!What can be done? First off, Cypriot banks cannot honor their debts, which unfortunately overwhelmingly take the form of deposits. So a default on deposits is inevitable.As I now understand it, the initial screwup was a joint error of the Europeans and the Cypriots. Europe didn’t want an explicit bank resolution, which would among other things have given clear seniority to small insured deposits; instead, it wanted this essentially fictitious tax scheme. Meanwhile, the Cypriot government still has the illusion that its banking model can survive, and wanted to limit the hit to the big overseas depositors. Hence the debacle of the small-deposit tax.In the end this probably comes, in some version, to what it should have been from the start — a big haircut on deposits over 100,000.But even then the situation is by no means under control. There’s still a real estate bubble to implode, there’s still a huge problem of competitiveness (made worse because one major export industry, banking, has just gone to meet its maker), and the bailout will leave Cyprus with Greek-level sovereign debt.So then what? As a number of people have pointed out, Cyprus is arguably better positioned than Iceland to do an Iceland, because devaluing a reintroduced Cypriot currency could bring in a lot of tourism. But will the Cypriots — who haven’t even reconciled themselves to the end of their round-tripping business — be willing to go there?Truly awesome stuff.

ali FUBAR... plačem Edited March 21, 2013 by Arbeitmann

[Prospero]

jedno od žešćih poseravanja po evro-sistemu:We are not ruled by a cabal of Lex Luthors and Blofelds. We are ruled by the Three StoogesOne of the most frightening aspects of the crisis is how it appears that our leaders are increasingly at a complete loss as to what to do.It’s common to come across popular spitting fury at the ‘banksters’ and ‘conmen’ who govern us, as though those with their hands on the levers of the European system are moustache-twiddling cartoon-mastermind villains of unbounded venality (cf. Matt Taibbi’s characterisation of Goldman Sachs as a ‘vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity’).But as we peer goggle-eyed and gap-jawed at the scale of the debacle of the Great Cypriot Bank Robbery and the blame game that has followed, it is manifest that we are so very, very far from being ruled by a cabal of cat-stroking Lex Luthors and Ernst Stavro Blofelds of finance. On the contrary – we are ruled by the Three Stooges of finance.Each of the individuals involved in the negotiations last weekend has been keen to stress how he or she was not responsible for coming up with the idea of imposing the ‘stability levy’ on those with under €100,000 in deposits. All actors have been keen to seek out their preferred media outlet to plead their case.Different outlets have published in the last few days their versions of the inside story. Peter Spiegel’s in the Financial Timesis particularly comprehensive and has the ring of truth to it.(Although I should say here: Why isn’t anybody screaming “Hello? What’s with all the Kremlinology? Why do we have no choice but to report on decision-making of this import and impact on domestic laws and finances in essentially the same way that we report on the election of the Pope? Why does the Eurozone’s de facto legislature operate like a papal conclave?”)The ECB’s Joerg Asmussen basically said: ‘It wasn’t us.’ Cypriot officials said: ‘It was Schaeuble.’ Schaeuble said: ‘It was the Cypriots, the Commission and the ECB.’ ‘Rehn started it.’ ‘No I didn’t.’ Unnamed officials darkly hint that the Cypriots care more about Russian oligarchs than they do their own people while Nicosia publicly accuses the ECB of blackmail. France says they never supported the plan. Fingers are pointed at the Finns, Slovaks and Dutch as bullies egging the big kids on.But all we have to do is go read the press statements of Saturday morning to find very few dissenters from the arrangement. Even European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who had nothing to do with the crafting of the deal and should have been free to be more critical publicly if he really felt that way, as of Saturday had only timid concerns, agreeing that depositors should pay for some of the bailout, and only called for an exemption for those with sums under €25,000, however much he is now thundering at the injustice of what has happened.The most enlightening nugget in the FT’s investigation is when we find out that a proposal to exempt low-level depositors ‘was only actively supported by Ramon Fernandez, the French treasury chief – a fact that supports [French finance minister Pierre] Moscovici’s claim to have been an early opponent of the levy on smaller savers. “The rest did not care.”’That is to say they all, with the possible exception of France, share the blame.Over in the UK, British Chancellor George Osborne’s scramble on Sunday to reassure UK depositors in Cyprus that they will be reimbursed (at a back-of-the-envelope cost of £138-200 million), reeks of something of an afterthought, not least because his deputies later wobble, saying that ‘most’ of any monies seized will be recompensed.And the Eurozone’s conclave of necktied cardinals all quickly rowed back after the fury on the streets of Nicosia and the Cypriot parliament does its democratic duty and pushes back, rejecting the deal (the first domestic parliament in Europe brave enough to do so).They all just seem so utterly at a loss of what to do, other than to stick to the received consensus wisdom of TINA – There Is No Alternative.Attempting to pin the blame on a particular actor though misses the point. We have to remember that not just in the Cypriot case, but for each of the euro-crisis intensive-care patients, there is a role that the ECB plays, that the IMF plays, that the European Commission plays, that the Council of Ministers/Eurogroup/European Council plays, and that local elites play. Positions are often overlapping but conflicting, representing the different elite domestic and/or institutional interests to which a particular actor is most sympathetic.Yet when we take a helicopter view, we see that the shock-therapy course is agreed by all, regardless of nationality, institution or party. Asmussen and Dijsselbloem are social democrats and Anastasiades is a conservative. Truly, anyone who still believes that there is any difference on economic questions between Europe’s social democrats and conservatives any more can only be one of the rapidly dwindling members of one of these two tribes.So saying that the Cypriot debacle is all the EU’s fault or all Berlin’s fault may be incorrect, but saying that it’s all the local comprador elites’ fault is also incorrect. It is a complicated interplay of interests between these different actors, just as Greece’s late Pasok prime minister, George Papandreou may have been thrown under the bus by the Frankfurt Group for threatening a referendum on a second bailout – even though ideologically he represented nothing different. Russian vs European oligarchsAnd as if the raid on bank account-holders with less than €100 large was the only egregious act performed in the wee hours of last Saturday in Brussels in any case. What about the 70-something couple for whom that €120,000 maybe is their life savings? Or the small and medium-sized businesses for whom that sum represents a payroll account?And if there really is the concern on the part of the rest of Europe about Russian oligarch accounts, could they not have been forfeited instead? Why are no senior bondholders – hedge funds or other holders of Cypriot sovereign debt even talked about as subjects for bearing some of the pain?All those who signed off on Saturday’s deal endorsed once again a programme of austerity, privatisation (of utilities) and structural adjustment worth some 5.75% of GDP – the same recipe that has such a depression-beating success elsewhere? The record is broken. Beyond its injustice, the strategy plainly is not working. As elsewhere, an economy already in recession will be bludgeoned by additional austerity, likely meaning a second or third kick at the bail-out can somewhere down the line, in turn requiring still further austerity in a vicious cycle.The focus on who is to blame also occludes the step change from private to public of threats of economic violence from Frankfurt and Berlin that has occurred in the wake of the Cypriot parliament disobedience. Their wrath is something to behold. So now we have an ultimatum from the ECB that it will cut off its Emergency Liquidity Assistance, snuffing out the oxygen to Cypriot banks. They will collapse, with all the social dislocation that would bring.Schaeuble, unused to being defied, roared: “The ECB has made it clear that without a reform programme for Cyprus the aid can’t continue. Someone has to explain this to the Cypriots and I think there’s a danger that they won’t be able to open the banks again at all.”Someone has to explain this to the Cypriots. The same refrain we’ve heard throughout the crisis, but with added bile: Vote how you like, dum-dums, so long as it’s the right way.And lest we think France somehow gets a gold star in all this, her representative on the Eurogroup Working Group, which comprises deputy finance ministers or senior treasury officials from the 17 eurozone members, as well as representatives of the ECB and Commission, has this to say as regards democracy in Cyprus: “The (Cypriot) parliament is obviously too emotional.”Lastly, where is this sudden concern about tax havens and Russian oligarchs and organised crime coming from anyway? Leaving aside the bail-out cash that never actually lands in Greece but heads straight back to northern reckless lenders, the ‘oligarchs’ of core European finance, the chutzpah of a Dutch chair of the Eurogroup or a Luxembourgish finance minister making any noise about tax havens is breathtaking.Ah, I hear you say, but European oligarchs aren’t quite like Russian oligarchs. They aren’t up to their tits in organised crime.Well, let’s have a look at the shenanigans of UK multinational bank HSBC, ordered twice by US regulators in 2003 and 2010 to tighten its anti-money-laundering activities. Then in November last year, it was found that HSBC had set up offshore accounts in the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey for suspected drug-dealers and other criminals, prompting Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to launch an investigation. The following month, HSBC was fined $1.9 billion for allegedly laundering some $881 million in drugs cash for cartels. The company turned a blind eye to Mexican drug cartels using its branches to launder millions, with staff had stripping identifying information on transactions from embargoed countries such as Iran and Sudan. The company has also been accused of laundering money for terrorist groups. But of course, as the aforementioned Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi put it in his investigation of the case, HSBC is ‘Too big to jail‘.There aren’t Russian oligarchs who are eeevil and European oligarchs who are saintly. There are just oligarchs.And of course the useful idiots – the bungling stooges – who abet them.

[Prospero]

kiparska vlada formirala "fond solidarnosti" :sloba:

[Luther]

kiparska vlada formirala "fond solidarnosti" :sloba:

Odmah mi isto pade na pamet, nego kako će funkcionisati Zajam za preporod Kipra, tj. kako će se fond puniti?

[Prospero]

pa valjda porezom na depozite edit: ako pre toga ne budu ostrakovani

[Prospero]

mučeni ciprioćani se dovijaju:

Cyprus Adopts Bank Overhaul Plan Parliament Passes Emergency Measures to Close Lender, but International Creditors Raise DoubtsBy NEKTARIA STAMOULI in Athens, MATINA STEVIS in Nicosia and GABRIELE STEINHAUSER in BrusselsCyprus remained at loggerheads with international creditors over a deal to rescue the country from financial collapse, even after it adopted a radical bank-restructuring plan that would close its second-largest lender and see its big depositors lose much of their savings.Nicosia and euro-zone governments were in an 11th-hour bid Friday to avoid a meltdown of Cyprus's financial system before Monday evening, when the European Central Bank has said it would cut off emergency liquidity for the country's banks. Euro-zone finance ministers called a meeting for Sunday night in Brussels to discuss the fate of the Mediterranean island, according to two officials.But Cyprus's government was still scrambling to raise €5.8 billion ($7.5 billion) that it needs to prop up its banks and qualify for a €10 billion bailout from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund. European and Cypriot officials familiar with the latest plans said they left a funding hole of some €3 billion.Friday evening, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, the European Union's two key institutions in Brussels, canceled a summit in Japan planned for next week—underscoring concerns that the Cyprus dilemma won't be sorted out by the Monday deadline."The ongoing efforts to find a solution for the financial situation of Cyprus require our presence in Brussels," the two presidents said in a statement.Meanwhile, the Parliament in Nicosia passed two key bills that would allow it to close down its second largest bank, Popular Bank of Cyprus, and aggressively curtail the free flow of money on the island. The bank restructuring law would see depositors in Popular Bank, also known as Laiki Bank, to lose as much as 40% of their savings above €100,000, Cypriot and European officials said.As details of the latest plan emerged late Friday, there were signs that the country may be forced to also resolve Bank of Cyprus, its biggest lender. The government in Nicosia was fighting to avert this by proposing an even deeper levy on the lender's uninsured depositors than one demanded earlier by euro-zone partners, according officials involved in the bailout talks.Two officials involved in the negotiations said the government in Nicosia had proposed to levy a 20% tax on depositors with more than €100,000 in their accounts in Bank of Cyprus. The government hoped that would allow them to protect the lender, which holds more than one third of total deposits on the island, some €28 billion.But senior European finance-ministry officials in a call Friday evening expressed doubts that the plan would raise enough money to ring fence the lender, according to two officials on the call."What if you impose a levy on deposits on [bank of Cyprus] and two weeks later bank collapses anyway, where does that leave you?" one of the officials said.Resolving both banks "makes more sense," said another official.Nicosia has spent much of this week looking for alternatives to a rescue program it had initially agreed with the euro zone and the IMF on March 16. Under the original plan—which was rejected by parliament Tuesday—all large deposits on the island would be taxed by at 9.9% and deposits of less than €100,000 at 6.75%.A second proposal by the Cypriot government to tap pensions in order to raise the cash required for an international rescue was rejected by the German government, raising the pressure on Nicosia to cobble together a new plan by the end of the weekend.German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed frustration Friday with the way Cyprus is handling its bailout crisis. According to senior party officials who attended the meeting, Ms. Merkel said Cyprus appears to be waiting to see which side will blink first."We want Europe to stay together and we want to stabilize the euro, but I have the impression Cyprus is playing with fire," Volker Kauder, a key Merkel ally, told reporters after the talks. Mr. Kauder is the parliamentary leader for the governing center-right coalition.Faced with a potential bank run and a collapse of its lenders, the Cypriot parliament on Friday passed a range of new laws regulating the resolution of banks and introducing restrictions on financial transactions to stem potential outflows once the banks reopen.The proposals will allow authorities to restrict noncash transactions, freeze check cashing, limit withdrawals and even convert checking accounts into fixed-term deposits.One European official said these measures could be in place "for months."European officials on Friday urged the island to rush through the new laws to allow its banks to reopen Tuesday, as planned."What we are asking is for these laws be voted as quickly as possible, as a matter of urgency," said Chantal Hughes, a spokeswoman for the European Commission in Brussels. She added that restrictions on movement of capital were very important at a time when the country is faced with a "very exceptional situation."Cypriot banks have been closed since March 16, when the country clinched its initial bailout deal with the euro zone and the IMF. Since then, the island's government has tried, and failed, to secure financial support from Russia, traditionally one of the island's key allies.Many observers expected that some form of a broader tax on deposits would be part of the final bailout deal."Now, we appear to be coming back to the original proposal in the way that it should have been: that is for deposits below €100,000 to be guaranteed, which is the European norm, while deposits above €100,000 will be subject to a tax," said Theodore Couloumbis, professor emeritus in international relations at the University of Athens. "If this goes through, in conjunction with the troika and the Eurogroup, then the banks can reopen on Tuesday without a bank run or disaster,"Asked whether the bank levy legislation that the Cypriot parliament rejected will be back on the table, the government spokesman said that lawmakers should consider the "self-evident conclusion."A "haircut will be our last choice. It is bad, it wasn't our first," ruling Democratic Rally party lawmaker Marios Mavridis told state television RIC.The bank restructuring plan will start the process of gradually shutting Cyprus Popular. The bank's healthiest assets will be transferred to its larger peer, Bank of Cyprus PCL, while Cyprus Popular's unwanted loans and other assets will be shunted into another structure for eventual disposal, said people familiar with the plan.The planned downsizing of Cyprus's biggest banks will be blow to a nation of 800,000 people with an economy of less than €18 billion, which has been built around a financial services industry that has grown to seven times the size of economic output in terms of assets. It could also spell a wave of layoffs among Cyprus Popular's more than 8,000 employees."It's a tragic day for Cyprus. The bills that have been submitted effectively give the right to the central bank of Cyprus to put under the resolution fund any financial institution it desires and to take necessary measures to protect the financial system," Takis Feidias, deputy CEO of Cyprus Popular Bank, told reporters."The weight, in the first phase, will be carried by Laiki bank and it isn't yet certain if the money of the employees in the providence funds, that are their pensions, will be secured," he added. "There are many questions that certainly can't be answered right now."

[Budja]

Ja jos uvek cekam da kazu sta ce da bude sa senior bondholders i akcionarima.Ovo fokusiranje na sakacenje depozitara je potpuno necuveno.Kao i dozvola da se ograde grcki ulagaci.Sve kipti od neprincipijelnosti koja ce skupo kostati finansijski sitem EU.

[Anduril]

Navodno ECB stoji iza senior boldholders-a - samo da se zna da Draghi nije zaboravio svoju staru firmu i drugare.

[Filipenko]

Oj, kukavno nemaštvo ugašeno... :fashisto:

[CPP]

Za desetak minuta pocinje samit sa Eurogrupom.Izbegavam tv i vesti poslednjih par dana, sve to je deja vu all over again, i sa clueless politicarima koji vrte istu plocu, i sa expertima po emisijama i sa nemocnim nacionalizmom po novinama i komentarima istih.Svecke™ vesti su takodje vec vidjene; senzacionalizam, dizanje panike i pravljenje slona od buve. U Limassolu je mirno, bio je i nekakav maraton danas, gomila sveta na ulici, kafici uglavnom puni. Ceka se resenje, kakvo god.Ovde su sirove vesti iz kiparske perspektive iz minuta u minut. To moze da se protera kroz google translate.

[CPP]

I da kazem unapred, deja vu ce biti i zatezanje do kraja, i onda uredno potpisivanje onog sta im je trazeno.Mene licno bi to pogodilo mnogo manje nego prvobitni plan, ali cenim da ce ovaj pritisak da se likvidira i BOC izazvati katastrofu male privrede, te kolaps real estatea kad se postavi pitanje stambenih kredita koji se ne vracaju.