Aphrodite is Angry: Actions and Perspectives from Key Players during Cyprus’ Financial Crisis By G. Tang
While everyone in Europe was talking about Cyprus’s soap opera-like bailout negotiations and while everyone in Cyprus was shocked about the impending bail-in, I had just moved in Mexico City, away from the worries of Europe… or so I thought.
There I was, eating tacos and enchiladas on Friday night while on Saturday morning my friend Steph, calling from Germany, asked me why I seemed so cheerful, ‘haven’t you heard?’ he said ‘the bail-in! It happened secretly last night.’ Along with everyone in Cyprus I fell into a vortex of uncertainty wondering ‘what now? What’s next?’ However unlike people in Cyprus who could protest and find solidarity in their community all I could do was follow the bailout talks online from a country thousands of miles away as the island sank into the Mediterranean.
Far from home I was unable to do anything other than talk to the handful of Argentineans and Brazilians I befriended who also suffered a loss of their savings a few years earlier. No one in Mexico, with its booming economy, could understand what was happening in Cyprus and not many people knew what Cyprus was, let alone where it is. If I could not talk about it then I might as well write about it. So I began researching and writing about the negotiation process and all topics related to it. The result was an essay of 15,000 words called ‘Aphrodite is Angry: Actions and Perspectives from Key Players during Cyprus’ Financial Crisis.’
‘Aphrodite is Angry’ looks at how Cyprus could have avoided making the errors it did which eventually led to a bail-out. It then looks at how the negotiation process unfolded before discussing the various perspectives and positions from the EU Member States’ governments which influenced the bailout negotiations. It goes on to ask why Cyprus needed a bailout if it adhered to anti-money laundering regulations and why, if Cyprus laundered money, did the EU not act earlier? The essay examines how the bailout affected the Russian community in Cyprus as well as how Cypriots interpreted and reacted to the bail-in. Finally the essay explains why Cyprus needs reforms to stay competitive, increase transparency and accountability and how the public sector needs to be wound down as its inflexible practices and lack of innovation has adversely affected Cyprus’ entrepreneurial spirit.
Extract from ‘Aphrodite is Angry’
Cyprus was the EU’s Crisis Improvisation Project with the EU and IMF not quite certain what path they should take in regards to Cyprus’ or future EU bailouts. Within the space of 10 days, European leaders showed the world the true depth of their lack of strategy. Most memorable was the bail-in of insured depositors (accounts with less than €100,000) which are meant to be protected under EU law. It was the EU that suggested these accounts be plundered. So the EU was suggesting breaking the laws it created. The EU’s recommendation that Cyprus should tax insured depositors suggested that Cyprus was an unequal Member State. To be democratic meant all Members States are equal under EU law. That the EU suggested Cyprus should tax its insured depositors proved that the EU operated in undemocratic methods. One could argue the opposite; that the EU was not acting undemocratically as there currently are no rules or regulations for bailouts and there is no banking union to complement the single currency.
Therefore the EU was not acting undemocratically but rather, acting practically. However, without any practices to regulate banks and the single currency, the EU was not acting practically; it was just acting, trying to do something without any rules that should have been in place.
Aphrodite is Angry is available on Amazon’s UK website in Kindle format at the below link:
