STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 6 March 2015

[Demeter]

2. Did the troika defraud billions at the expense of thousands of depositors in Cyprus?

The allegation: Cyprus received loans only on the condition that its banks sold their branches in Greece to a competitor in Athens at a fraction of their value. ThePressProject publishes exclusively in Greece the investigation of German journalist Harald Schumann for the newspaper Tagesspiegel.

http://www.thepressproject.net/article/73470/How-the-troika-and-Piraeus-Bank-sealed-Cypruss-fate



As an experienced politician, Nicolas Papadopoulos is accustomed to difficult times. He has been an MP and head of the Cypriot Parliamentary Finance Committee for nine years. He is also head of the socially liberal Democratic Party (DIKO) so no one can accuse him of being a political radical. But when the 41 year old tells this story, his voice breaks and his fury brings tears to his eyes. "My country," he says, "is the victim of a daylight robbery." "They stole three and a half billion euros from us and gave it to a Greek bank." "People’s life savings, the money our citizens saved for their retirement." Now many will even lose their homes. "The troika and the Eurogroup decided this, and we were forced to agree since they had a gun to our heads '. It was "one of the biggest scandals in the history of the Eurozone."

So did Eurozone Finance Ministers and officials of the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF perpetrate a billion euro robbery? It sounds absurd. But the allegation is based on facts and documents. They show that officials in Brussels and Frankfurt imposed a highly controversial agreement on the country, under the terms of which customers of the Cypriot banks lost three billion euros, which a Greek bank then received as profit. So far parliamentarians and the European courts have not dealt at all with this question, and one reason for this is that the Cypriot government does not dare to speak publicly. It is is dependent on the goodwill of the ECB and the European Commission. Now, however, hundreds of Cypriots have appealed to the European Court of Justice and the Central Bank of Cyprus intends to launch an investigation.

The road to the controversial agreement began with the economic collapse of the Republic of Cyprus in 2012. Until then, the small country of 800,000 inhabitants was one of the richest in Europe. With low taxes and flexible control mechanisms, the island had become a financial centre and tax haven. The wealthy from all over the world, though mainly from Russia, hid money from their domestic tax authorities in Cyprus, creating a strong banking sector in the country. The balance sheets of the three main banks, the Laiki Bank, the Hellenic Bank and the Bank of Cyprus, added up to eight times the country's GDP. Glossy palatial banks and hundreds of luxurious law offices in Nicosia testify to that imported wealth.

The blow came in April 2012. The Greek debt haircut caused Cypriot banks losses of four billion euros, nearly one quarter of GDP. The government of former President Demetris Christofias provided support of 1.8 billion euros to the Laiki Bank, which had taken a particularly fierce blow. Soon after the government itself faced difficulties to refinance its growing debt. As previously in Greece, Ireland and Portugal, so Cyprus had to submit a request for a loan and negotiate with officials from the Troika. But Cyprus had no friends in the EU.

MORE--I DON'T THINK ANYONE HAS FRIENDS IN THE EU. ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO DO AWAY WITH IT.

THIS IS A MAJOR, MAJOR EXPOSE' . IT SHOWS STEP BY STEP HOW THE EU IS THE BIGGEST PREDATOR OF THEM ALL, CONSUMING ITS MEMBER STATES AND LEAVING DESTRUCTION AND DEATH BEHIND.

TAKE SOME TIME AND READ IT.