NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather forecasts

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Budget 2025
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
    • Cooking the Books
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • What the Actual
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Business

Cyprus MPs' bailout vote fuels European jitters

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Other·
19 Apr, 2013 05:30 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Cyprus has stunned EU officials by ordering a vote in its parliament on the terms of the "troika" bailout for the country, risking a rejection by angry lawmakers and a fresh eruption of the crisis.

Attorney General Petros Clerides said the assembly must have a say on the EU-IMF-European Central Bank accord, which will inflict huge losses on depositors at Laika and Bank of Cyprus.

The Orthodox Church of Cyprus expects to lose €100 million ($155 million), crippling its charities.

It is unclear whether the Government can muster a majority. The communists and socialists have been vehement critics of the deal.

Green MP George Perdikis told the Cyprus Mail he would vote against it to uphold the freedom of his country. "It is a crime to deliver Cyprus into the hands of the Troika and allow it to become a colony."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Parliament rejected the original plan for a levy on guaranteed deposits below €100,000.

Rejection of the final deal might exhaust patience in Berlin and Frankfurt. The country would be forced out of the euro within days if the European Central Bank cuts off support.

The pan-EU socialist bloc in the European Parliament said the "neo-colonial" handling of Cyprus had been a disgrace and called for the Troika to be disbanded.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Liberals demanded a probe to find out who made the "disastrous" decision to target small savers.

The latest twist came as Europe's top policy-makers vowed to continue their hard-line crisis strategy, brushing aside warnings of an economic debacle and ignoring a devastating challenge to austerity claims.

In a defiant statement, an alliance of the ECB, the Commission and Eurogroup said the "evidence is clear" that Economic Monetary Union crisis policies had succeeded and recovery was in sight.

"The eurozone has shown a degree of resilience and problem-solving capacity that many observers and policy makers would not have predicted even a year ago."

Discover more

World

Cyprus caught at the crossroads

01 Apr 04:30 PM
Business

IMF contributes $1.5b to rescue package for Cyprus

04 Apr 04:30 PM
World

Young leave Portugal in droves

19 Apr 05:30 PM
World

Roll up, get your piece of Greece

26 Apr 08:28 PM

But the claims have been flatly contradicted by the International Monetary Fund, which warned this week that the eurozone remained "the epicentre of potential risk" in the world, and was endangering stability by dragging its feet on an EU banking union.

Saxo Bank chief economist Steen Jacobsen accused EMU leaders of dangerous complacency.

"Nothing they say is true," he said. "Reality has never been further away. It's scary.

"We think the eurozone is in far worse shape than they realise. We will see contraction of 1 per cent this year but it could be as bad as 2 per cent."

Citigroup cut its forecasts drastically, warning that the EMU will shrink this year and next and a quasi-slump would drag on until 2017.

It said Italy would contract 1.6 per cent in 2013 and 1.2 per cent in 2014, and manage growth of 0.2 per cent in 2015. By then, its public debt would have risen to 142 per cent of GDP.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"Some form of debt restructuring via maturity extension or interest rate reduction may be likely over time," said chief economist Willem Buiter.

The outlook is worse for Spain and worse yet for Portugal, where debt is forecast to spiral out of control to 154 per cent of GDP by 2015.

Buiter warned that a haircut for private creditors "may be eventually required" despite the pledge of EU leaders that there would be no repeat of losses inflicted on sovereign bonds in Greece.

Europe's policy elites are increasingly on the back foot after furious controversy this week over a Harvard paper widely cited as the intellectual justification for austerity.

The 2010 study by professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff purported to show a cliff-edge fall in growth rates to -0.1 per cent once public debt reaches 90 per cent of GDP in rich countries.

An expose by the University of Massaschusetts found that there had been a basic Excel error and other slips in the study.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In fact, it said, growth falls slightly to 2.2 per cent.

The effect is less serious on states that have their own currency and monetary instruments.

The IMF has already warned eurozone leaders that the "fiscal multiplier" is much higher than originally thought in the EMU crisis countries, implying that austerity cuts have a much greater effect.

Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy and, most recently, France are caught in a vicious circle where economic contraction erodes the tax base, causing them to miss deficits targets.

They then have to cut deeper, fuelling a downward spiral.

The IMF said in its Global Financial Stability Report that the credit crunch in southern Europe was getting worse rather than better, and warned that a quarter of all bonds and debt issued by European companies was "unsustainable".

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

- Telegraph

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Business

Premium
Shares

Market close: NZX tracks US futures down 1.23%

19 May 05:57 AM
Business|companies

On The Up: Crimson Education co-founder to teach entrepreneurship at University of Auckland

19 May 05:03 AM
Premium
Opinion

Hayden Wilson: Fiscal restraint and growth focus define upcoming Budget

18 May 11:00 PM

Deposit scheme reduces risk, boosts trust – General Finance

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Business

Premium
Market close: NZX tracks US futures down 1.23%

Market close: NZX tracks US futures down 1.23%

19 May 05:57 AM

The Warehouse Group is trading close to record lows.

On The Up: Crimson Education co-founder to teach entrepreneurship at University of Auckland

On The Up: Crimson Education co-founder to teach entrepreneurship at University of Auckland

19 May 05:03 AM
Premium
Hayden Wilson: Fiscal restraint and growth focus define upcoming Budget

Hayden Wilson: Fiscal restraint and growth focus define upcoming Budget

18 May 11:00 PM
Premium
Spark confirms outsourcing deal, reveals number of NZ jobs lost

Spark confirms outsourcing deal, reveals number of NZ jobs lost

18 May 10:50 PM
Gold demand soars amid global turmoil
sponsored

Gold demand soars amid global turmoil

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • What the Actual
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven CarGuide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP