Brussels, 10/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - Eurozone finance ministers are beginning to lose patience because Cyprus is taking too long to draw up a structural adjustment programme in exchange for international financial aid. The chair of Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, said after the 8 October meeting of eurozone finance ministers that talks were ongoing, but ministers had been unanimous in calling for faster progress.
The director general of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said that the countermeasures the Cypriot government has unveiled in the talks on a financail bailout were being looked at. They are an alternative to the spending cuts recommended by the troika (the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank), which would make fewer cuts in public spending (see EUROPE 10703). The Cypriot media says aid of some €15 billion will be required, €10 billion of it to recapitalise Cypriot banks, which have lost a lot of money from the Greek crisis (and the Greek bond writedown) and €5.5 billion to roll over the country's debt (it is unable to borrow from the money markets).
Cypriot finance minister Vassos Shiarly suggested recently that the requests for aid currently under examination (Greece and Cyprus) and any further requests in the future should be considered as a single package and decisions taken on all of them in November. Germany seems to like the idea because it doesn't want to keep returning to its parliament for one ratification after another. (MB/transl.fl)