Moscow: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has called EU as “bull in a china shop”
Speaking at a conference on the Russia-EU partnership, Medvedev called the EU-brokered scheme for resolving the Cyprus crisis “unpredictable and inconsistent.”
“So far the EU together with the Cyprus parliament have unfortunately acted like a bull in a china shop. I think all possible mistakes which could’ve been made in this situation have been made,” Medvedev told journalists from European media outlets, saying that the mishandling of the crisis had undermined confidence in financial institutions, in Cyprus and beyond.
It may be mentioned that on Tuesday the Cypriot parliament voted against a revised bank deposit levy that international creditors, including the EU and the International Monetary Fund, had set as a condition for providing a 10 billion euro bailout. The tax was meant to shave 6.7 per cent off any deposits less than 100,000 euros and 9.9 per cent off larger deposits. The controversial move caused uproar in the country and abroad.
“We think that the suggested scheme of solving the financial problems surprises, to say the least, with its unpredictability and inconsistency,” Medvedev said, adding that the scheme has already been rearranged multiple times.
Finance Minister Michael Sarris, who heads the Cypriot delegation, has expressed hope that Moscow is going to lend money to Nicosia on acceptable conditions on Wednesday. This is despite calls from German Chancellor Angela Markel for Cyprus to hold talks only with the international creditors and not third parties like Russia. Earlier Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades discussed the economic situation in Cyprus with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has slammed the proposed deposits as “unfair, unprofessional and dangerous.”
