Arguments between various EU countries

[Poppy]

Apparently there are various arguments going on about countries accepting migrants back where they first landed. Many first registered in Hungary and Greece but then moved on to Austria,Sweden and Germany which have better benefits but under EU law they should be returned but Hungary and Greece are refusing /have refused them.
If there is going to be this much inter fighting then a further death toll for the EU?

[Poppy]

Yes you are right HIC I did mean death knell not death toll!! I am not a hater of the EU at all but they do need to reform as I think they have admitted.Maybe the migrant situation was just too much for them but surely this has shown that their rules are just too rigid and they need to be more flexible around individual countries needs to survive. Another instance is farming subsidies which apparently were set up to help the small struggling farmers ( of which my father was one) but it ended up being available to all farmers regardless of their needs ( Hezeltine springs to mind as just one example)

[cyprusgrump]

If there is going to be this much inter fighting then a further death toll for the EU?

Think you mean a "death knell" - not death toll

People - or perhaps more accurately 'EU haters' - have been forecasting the demise of the EU (and the Euro for that matter) for as long as it has been in existence. McIngy claimed on CL 5 years ago that the institution was doomed; a prediction he voiced even more strongly at the time of the Cyprus bailout in 2013. And by the time of the Greek bailout in 2014 he was even more certain it would fail. Kissonerga Graham (KG) voiced an opinion on CL a few months ago that the EU was dead on it's feet, but simply refuses to keel over. Wrong again.

The same people were predicting - dare I say hoping - that the Netherlands would go for Geert Wilders: they didn't. It's unlikely too that Marine le Pen will wrest power...and Angela Merkel seems as popular as ever in Germany.

While an international club of 27/28 member states is inevitably going to have differences from time to time, particularly over major issues like refugees from Syria, the reality is that the EU states have been, and are, remarkably united, resolute and resilient. Their economies are perking up and the Euro stays unflinchingly strong.

My belief is that the 27 states will present a very united front against the UK in it's departure from the EU. So for those who believe the EU is going to collapse anytime soon: dream on

How do you believe the Greek debt crisis will be resolved...?

[Firefly]

CG

Another bailout the same as last time.

[cyprusgrump]

CG

Another bailout the same as last time.

Do an NPL and kick it down the road again you say...?

It seems to me that they simply can't pay it back so need a portion of the debt written off in some way.

Merkel won't allow that until at least after the German elections so another long summer of tension looks likely...

[Firefly]

CG

Of course they can't pay, they never will be able to, it's just a matter of how many times they will be bailed out, before the rest of the EU rebel as I see it.

Jackie

[geoffreys]

Good job the UK will soon be out of all that nonsense!
Geoff.

[kingfisher]

Germany France and Luxembourg already publicly scrapping over 159 jobs when EU Financial Regulator moves from the City. So much for unity in Europe...
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/luxem ... 21101.html

[outasite]

Good job the UK will soon be out of all that nonsense! Geoff.

So was it nonsense when the EU - as part of the Troika - bailed out Cyprus and it's banks in 2013? Or should the country have been allowed to go down the swanneee (which it would have done without back-up from the EU).

Didn't the Cyprus bail out include a raid on peoples bank accounts. I seem to remember it was not the most popular move by Merkel and Co.

[Poppy]

Oh goodness Hudswell I agree with most of your posts but not this one I'm afraid. Cyprus needed the EU and the Troika who made them resolve many issues which Cyprus had just been conveniently ignoring such as NPL's ,Title Deeds,etc,etc. Granted there are still issues with TD's but surely much better than it was?
Cyprus needed the EU,the UK does not!

[Pete G]

So if the EU had stood by, arms folded, and did nothing, what do you think the outcome would have been. What would have been your proposal to fix a country teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and get it back on the road which it is now thankfully on?

Well I'm going to take a guess that not borrowing loads of money to build infrastructure boondoggles so they could get access to partial EU funding, not lending Greece a complete shedload of money on the basis of an EU request and worthless assurances that there was even the remotest chance they would ever get it back, not relinquishing control over their interest rates to prevent foreign investment, not adopting the attitude that money in bank accounts belongs to the state, and you can only have as much of it as they say, and still having sufficient control over their own exchange rate that they could devalue and reverse trading deficits might have been a good start.

Cyprus was only bankrupt by ECB standards, if it still had its own fiscal control it would have handled the crisis quite nicely, thank you, as it had been doing ever since we came off the gold standard

[Lynsab]

The introduction of the euro in Cyprus was a cause for celebration on the island, and it was well deserved. It followed decades of efforts to bring Cyprus to the core of Europe, the reasons Cyprus joined the EU was never economic but political ...it was to strengthen the political standing of the island and help create greater stability..I joined the islanders in 2004 so heard all of the above on a regular basis. Despite what many say Cyprus economy was in a good condition then but an overheated and at times criminal real estate market was growing on a par with Ireland's..

Five years later it was a shambles....

The last communist government within Europe allowed a rapid deterioration of public finances, and despite repeated warnings, the country’s creditworthiness and lost market access in May 2011. The destruction of the island’s largest power station in July 2011 subsequently threw the economy into recession. Together with the intensification of the euro area crisis in the summer and fall of 2011, these events weakened the banking system which was vulnerable due to its exposure in Greece. Rather than deal with its fiscal crisis, the government secured a loan from the Russian government that allowed it to postpone action until after the February 2013 election. Rather than protect the banking system, losses were imposed on banks and a campaign against them was coordinated and used as a platform by the communist party for the February 2013 election. The strategy succeeded in delaying resolution of the crisis and avoiding short-term political cost for the communist party before the election, but also in precipitating a catastrophe right after the election.

The island has a presidential system where the President of the Republic has absolute control on the executive branch for a fixed term of five years with virtually no additional checks and balances.By winning the presidency, the communist party effectively gained absolute control of policy-making for the first time in the history of the island, for five years. Cyprus became the first and only member state of the European Union whose government was communist.

It was the EU that saved the economy allowed Cyprus to regain its strength and climb out of the hole...

Nothing short of a miracle IMO...I realise the property market has fallen badly...but the island can build on its tourism which I believe it had ignored for sometime...woe betide any country that relies on becoming a tax haven take note UK

Forgive my cut and past in the centre of my post ( I've had it on my save file for sometime, no idea where it originally came from, but a Cypriot friend in paralimni emailed it )

[jeba]

I don't expect it to raid the bank accounts of its Citizens....

Correct me if I´m wrong, but as far as I remember it wasn´t a case of citizen´s money being raided but rather a case of bankrupcy and creditors having to take a haircut as nobody wanted to bail the banks out (or at least not all of them). Happens every day, just not as often with banks.

[trevnhil]

Agreed, Individual citizens Bank accounts had money taken out of them..

Trev..

[jeba]

How was this done technically? Did they pass a law confiscating funds irrespective of whether the respective bank was solvent or not?

[trevnhil]

From memory they took a percentage, 10% I think, from accounts with over €100,000 in them.
I am not sure now if it was just two banks or all of them.
Fortunately we were not affected as we have not got that amount of savings here..

Trev..

[Poppy]

I may well be wrong here but I seem to remember that those individuals who had money taken from them were given in return. some sort of share certificate? As Trev we were not affected but it was a very worrying time for all of us. Certainly I remember UK pensions and other pension providers refused to send our pensions to the Island.It was our bank (Laiki) which was affected,later taken over by Bank of Cyprus. I do remember queuing at Laiki main branch in Paphos for a couple of hours just to obtain a very small amount from my account and that the Bank had armed guards.

[trevnhil]

You are right I believe about the share certificates... But who at that time would have wanted to buy shares in the Bank of Cyprus or the Laiki Bank ?

Trev..

[Jimgward]

Individuals bank accounts were raided and many people lost a lot of money....

However, the posters blaming the EU are wrong. These raids happened prior to the Troika's involvement. It wasn't any kind of condition of bailout. It was the communIt's government who approved this with a bank. The EU bailout came later, after they had tried Russia for a bailout.

Som people see the world only through anti-EU specs.... I see both sides when they're wrong...

I really do hope the Brexit works well for the UK, but like any responsible person, I'm doing my but to try to put pressure on the government to play fair by all citizens and to take decisions that suit the majority and not the minority.

Speaking of which, when Britain bailed it's banks out, with no penalties on them, in terms of jail sentences etc. The very rich rich and the finance workers in the City, are the only ones who gained.

Billionaires became multi-billionaires and millionaires became multi-millionaires. Austerity suits only the very rich.

[Poppy]

Unless I have missed something Jimgward I don't think anyone was blaming the E U for it happening although someone did state how harshly they thought the Troika treated Cyprus after the bail out. Personally I don' t think they did as at the time Cyprus were incapable of managing their affairs and although the Troika decisions may have seemed severe they were necessary.