AKEL denounces further socialization of bank’s losses
Statement of Georgos Loucaides, AKEL Press Spokesperson
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 21st October 2015
The Central Bank of Cyprus figures show a continued growth in non-performing loans (NPL’s) for August too, having risen to almost €27,5 billion, a figure which remains by far the highest in Europe.
The situation with the NPL’s, which before the government of “salvation” was elected and the haircuts on bank deposits were imposed was only € 11,7 billion reflects on the one hand the state of the real economy, which 2.5 years afterwards continues to go to develop from bad to worse.
On the other hand, despite some improvement in secondary figures of the economy, the negative and full of dangers of the NPL’s demonstrates the resounding failure of the so-called recipe of the haircut on bank deposits and the vicious Memoranda austerity policy.
More specifically, while our people are still suffering and will continue to suffer from the ongoing socialization of the bank’s losses, the only thing achieved by the supposed Memorandum recipe was to change the form of the banking crisis which 2.5 years ago led to the collapse of the Cyprus economy.
The huge banking losses which caused the economic disaster were transferred by the government and the Troika workers on to the backs of households and small businesses, as a consequence of which working people and SME’s were unable to repay their debts to the banks and the banking crisis assuming the character of the enormous and dangerous problem for the economy of the NPL’s.
Of course the most tragic is that even now instead of focusing on stimulating and boosting economic growth and on the gradual restoration of the incomes of households and small businesses, the government and ruling forces are insisting on the further socialization of the losses to tackle the problem of the NPL’s, this time through the mass appropriations of the primary homes and business premises of small debtors and the haircut of their guarantors.
