At the bottom of the sea

Sailing through the first round of the presidential elections on February 17, Conservative Nikos Anastasiadis is well placed to take over from Communist Dimitri Christofias. His main aim? To negotiate a tricky rescue plan to avoid the island being dragged down by the collapse of its banks.

Published on 18 February 2013 at 16:26

As with Greece, to which it bears some resemblance, the bailout being drawn up for this small European territory would not be news if it were not for the resistance of Germany and the other creditor countries](3390701) of the eurozone.

Plenty of voices in those parliaments are demanding that Cyprus be left to sink and that it later be wiped off the map of the single currency. They are the same voices that are questioning the EU aid to Spanish banks and that are shocked by the lukewarm official reaction to cases of corruption in political parties and public administration in Spain.

Above all, if Cyprus is going to collapse, savers in northern Europe do not want their money used to backstop the huge deposits of wealthy Russians](1474111), who make the most of the island's financial advantages - and its balmy winter sunshine. Critics of this mini-rescue recall, and indeed rightly, that the island should never have been admitted to the Union without having first resolved its partition into two halves.

Today, though, European aid has become inevitable. Both the Cypriot government and its banks are up to their eyeballs in Greek debt that they bought up in a mad rush. The election earlier this year of a new governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus named Panicos puts a surreal touch on events.

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The European Central Bank wants no experiments, even minor ones, that could shatter the fragile confidence in the eurozone. And so Mario Draghi has, for now, persuaded European governments to restructure the island's debts following the Greek model, without harming individuals who have deposits in the country, to stem capital flight on a massive scale.

Russia, in the background to this little drama, will provide financial support to this operation; not for nothing has it been helping out its pet island in the Mediterranean since 2011. That we can count on.

View from Nicosia

Spotlight turns from division to bankruptcy

"For the first time in the recent history of the country, the campaign has not been marked by the issue of the divided island but by the risk of bankruptcy, writes O Philelefteros following the first round of the presidential elections on February 17. Around a third of the country has been occupied by the Turkish army since 1974, and no president has yet come up with a workable solution.

Thus, notes Politis,

Regardless of who wins, the new Cypriot president will be forced to place the country under the budgetary supervision of the European Union and the IMF, just like Greece, to get a loan of €17bn and stave off bankruptcy.

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