The Anastasiades government has destroyed the Cooperative Bank

Press Conference of the General Secretary of AKEL Andros Kyprianou

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 20 June 2018, Nicosia

Cyprus is once again the victim of criminal decisions taken by the Anastasiades-DISY Government, which are loading the burden of its mistakes and incompetence on the economy and society. Worst of all with unprecedented audacity they are attempting to shift the substance of the issue and their own responsibilities elsewhere. They won’t succeed. They have been governing the country for six years. They are now accountable for their handlings and decisions.

In 2013, Mr. Anastasiades imposed the haircut on bank deposits. In 2018 he sold-off the Co-Op Bank to a private bank with a subsidy.

The Anastasiades-DISY Government has for so long been trying to promote among the people the perception of a good and profitable agreement on Co-Op’s. Government officials, but also the Cyprus Co-operative Bank, were appearing every now and then in public to state that there is unprecedented interest for investment in Coops. In the end, it appeared that from the very beginning there was only one interested side – the one that was rumored for a year.

Yesterday the European Commission in expressing its position, ruined with just two words the communication show that the government and ruling forces had prepared all this time: bankruptcy and liquidation. The European Commission talks about mismanagement that led Coops to this point. It was the Anastasiades-DISY government that had undertaken the management of Coops over the past six years and appointed their own people there. The Commission also states that to consent to the process, the Anastasiades-DISY Government secretly pledged to change the legislative framework on foreclosures, an action about which they must provide explanations today.

The Anastasiades government destroyed Cooperatives, and with a criminal agreement that lacks economic logic, is loading taxpayers with the € 5 billion that have been given in one way or another so far to Cooperatives. In addition, the State provided guarantees of € 2.6 billion to the Hellenic Bank to cover losses that may arise from the loans transferred from the Cyprus Co-operative Bank. In essence, with its actions and scheming, the Government has gifted the Coop’s assets to the Hellenic Bank. And as if that weren’t enough, the State would even guarantee the future earnings of Hellenic Bank.

Citizens’ deposits definitely had to be protected. However, the Government shouldn’t be celebrating that it has supposedly saved them. It is precisely the Government who, through its actions and policies, has cast them in doubt. For that reason, it is the government that has put blackmailing dilemmas before the Cypriot people. It was the one that, whether out of incompetence or to serve expediencies, led developments to where they are today. Instead of celebrating, it should have been apologizing why we have once more arrived after 2013 to the dilemma, either for a second haircut on deposits or to put the burden of the erroneous policy and mistakes of the government and ruling forces on taxpayers and the Cypriot economy in another way.

The government and ruling forces are trying to shift the responsibilities on everybody else, instead of assuming them. However, I want to recall what they themselves were declaring and where we have ended up. In 2013, the State became the main shareholder of the Cooperative Central Bank. The then owners of Cooperatives, the thousands of people engaged in Coops, lost their property. The Government gave the pledge to return Cooperatives to their owners, namely the public. They were repeating this pledge in various ways up until recently.

Over the years, the Government, through the Minister of Finance Haris Georgiades gave numerous assurances about the progress of the Bank. He said that “amateurism is making way for professionalism and credibility” and that “the Cooperative Bank had very specific goals every quarter that it fulfilled”. Yesterday, the European Commission disproved the picture that the Finance Minister was trying to cultivate appearing on TV channels and newspaper headlines once, again with just two words. “Bad governance”. The Commission spoke of poor governance that did not allow the institution to survive. He said, in other words, that acquaintances and friends of the Minister and the Government, who were obviously appointed in line with these criteria, were managing Coops for six years, to end up today subsidizing another bank and to give away its property.

Haris Georgiades even assured in March 2018 that “Coops are not going to be sold-off”. Indeed the Coops were not sold, but destroyed by the Anastasiades-DISY government, burdening the state and citizens with billions of Euros of damages.

It is quite obvious that society realizes the Anastasiades-DISY Government’s political responsibilities for the financial crime committed. Society understands this from the result of the failed “therapy” imposed on the banking system, but also on the economy more broadly, as well as the government’s provocative insistence on implementing the same failed policies that continue to serve the privileged few to the detriment of the rest of society and which perpetuates serious dangers to the economy and society.

As regards the financial crime that has been committed by the Anastasiades- DISY government, a comprehensive and independent investigation is needed to apportion possible criminal and other responsibilities. The Government mustn’t try to disorient by ordering an investigation that will aim to control the responsibilities of anyone else other than itself.

As far as political responsibilities are concerned, citizens already know: the government and ruling forces have broken up Co-ops, socialized the losses and privatized the profits.