A one-time levy of 20 percent would be placed on uninsured deposits at one of the nation’s biggest banks, the Bank of Cyprus, to help raise 5.8 billion euros demanded by the lenders to secure a 10 billion euro, or $12.9 billion, lifeline. A separate tax of 4 percent would be assessed on uninsured deposits at all other banks, including the 26 foreign banks that operate in Cyprus.
An agreement was still far off, though, as Cyprus’s lenders left for the night without reaching an accord. The proposal still requires approval by the Cypriot Parliament and by the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Union leaders. Finance ministers from the 17 euro zone countries have scheduled an emergency meeting at 6 p.m. Sunday in Brussels.
Under the plan, savings under 100,000 euros would not be touched — a rollback after a controversial plan last week to tax insured deposits was rejected by Cyprus’s Parliament, amid outrage among ordinary savers and widespread concern that a precedent had been set for governments anywhere to tap insured bank savings in times of a national emergency.
Cypriot officials on Saturday also pulled back on a plan to raise billions of additional euros by nationalizing state-owned pension funds, after Germany, whose political and financial clout dominates euro zone policy, had indicated it opposes the move.
Cyprus’s president, Nicos Anastasiades, was meeting Saturday night with political parties to explain the plan. He was scheduled to fly to Brussels on Sunday.
Cyprus’s finance minister, Michalis Sarris, said on Saturday that there had been “significant progress toward reaching an agreement” with European officials on raising money for a bailout.
All parties were working against a deadline imposed by the European Central Bank, which has said it will cut off crucial short-term financing to Cyprus’s teetering commercial banks on Monday if a bailout deal is not reached by then.
Facing what he has called the worst crisis for Cyprus since the 1974 Turkish invasion, Mr. Anastasiades said on Saturday on his Twitter account: “We are undertaking great efforts. I hope we will have a resolution soon.”
A noisy crowd, estimated at around 2,000 people, gathered outside the presidential palace in the early evening, far more than the hundreds who had gathered there in recent days. With flanks of riot police standing guard, many demonstrators chanted, “Resign! Resign!” as they inveighed against the imminent consolidation of the Laiki Bank, one of Cyprus’s biggest and most troubled lenders. In a move demanded by the I.M.F., which will cost thousands of jobs, the toxic assets of Laiki will be hived off into a so-called bad bank, while healthy assets and accounts will be moved to the Bank of Cyprus. There, accounts over 100,000 euros would be subject to the 20 percent tax.
A cutoff of central bank financing and the absence of a bailout agreement could cause Cypriot banks to collapse. It could also lead to a disorderly default on the government’s debt, with unpredictable repercussions for the euro monetary union, despite the country’s tiny economy.
Asked on Saturday whether Cyprus had a backup plan if a deal is not reached, a government spokesman, Christos Stylianides, said, “We are doomed” if a solution is not found.
Olli Rehn, the European Union commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said in a statement on Saturday evening that it was “essential that an agreement is reached by the Eurogroup on Sunday evening in Brussels.”
But Mr. Rehn also suggested that opportunities had been squandered to find a less painful way out of the crisis. In a thinly veiled reference to the Cypriot Parliament’s rejection of an earlier deal, Mr. Rehn that “the events of recent days have led to a situation where there are no longer any optimal solutions available” and that, “Today, there are only hard choices left.”
European Union leaders “may conclude that it is best to let Cyprus default, impose capital controls and leave the euro zone,” Nicolas Véron, a senior fellow at Bruegel in Brussels and a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said in a recent assessment. “But such a move would violate the promise of European leaders to ensure the integrity of the euro zone no matter what and potentially set off a chain reaction, including possible bank runs in other euro zone member states, starting with the most fragile ones, such as Slovenia and, of course, Greece.”
Parliament was still deciding when to vote on the new proposal to tax uninsured bank deposits.
The finance ministers and the troika on Saturday were still calculating how much money those deposit-tax alternatives would raise for the government.
“The good news is that banks were shut last week, and so depositors couldn’t cut up their money into smaller accounts to avoid any tax,” said one European Union official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “But it’s sure that depositors did do this before, so this needs to be assessed.”
At the insistence of the central bank, lawmakers also voted on Friday to impose capital controls to limit withdrawals and bank account closings once Cyprus’s banks reopen. The current plan is to reopen them on Tuesday morning, after a nine-day emergency holiday meant to prevent a classic run on the banks.
But without a bailout, the banks would probably be unable to open.
Liz Alderman reported from Nicosia, Cyprus, and James Kanter from Brussels. Andreas Riris contributed reporting from Nicosia.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/business/global/cyprus-makes-fitful-progress-on-bank-bailout-deal.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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