– The Cyprus Bail-In Blows Up: President Urges Complete Bailout Overhaul (Full Letter) (ZeroHedge, June 18, 2013):
Cyprus’ President Nicos Anastasiades has realized (as we warned), too late it seems for the thousands of domestic and foreign depositors who were sacrificed at the alter of monetary union, that the TROIKA’s terms are “too onerous.” Anastasiades has asked EU lenders to unwind the complex restructuring and partial merger of its two largest banks leaving EU officials “puzzled”, according to a letter the FT has uncovered, as “essentially, he is asking for a complete reversal of the program.” The EU officials claim that the failure to prepare for the bailout’s impact was partially the fault of Mr Anastasiades’ government, which voted down a first agreed rescue before succumbing to a similar deal nine days later.
The FT goes on to note that although the letter does not request it explicitly, Mr Anastasiades is in effect asking for further eurozone loans on top of the existing EUR10bn sovereign bailout – something specifically ruled out by a German-led group of countries at the time. The return of beggars-can-be-choosers we presume – or just token gestures to recover some populist support as the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
As we noted here (and on the chart below), it seemed pretty obvious where this was going to end – obvious that is to everyone except Europe’s victory-claiming politicians.
It seems the ongoing flood of capital (despite controls) and collapse of the economy that we discussed here is occurring at ever increasing pace – and demanding even more gold be sucked out of their vaults…
“Unless Cyprus implements some controls that truly work, at this pace its entire banking system will be completely deposit-free in under one year. And it will need to sell much more than all its gold to continue keeping the Troika happy and in compliance with all the future (because there will be many more) bailouts.”
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