Tag: bailout

Slovenia pledged on Thursday (9 May) to sell 15 state firms including its second largest bank, biggest telecoms operator and national airline under a crisis package to avert an international bailout.

On her first visit to Brussels as Slovenian prime minister, Alenka Bratušek on Tuesday (9 April) sought to downplay reports that the eurozone country would be the next in line to seek a bailout. 

EXCLUSIVE / Europe’s claim to be a union of values is looking “rather bleak," Russian ambassador Vladimir Chizhov has told EurActiv in his first public interview since the Cyprus bailout. 

In the end it was hardly even a stroll, let alone the widely predicted run on the banks of Cyprus.

The president of Cyprus said today (29 March) the risk of bankruptcy had been contained and the country had no intention of leaving the euro, in a speech laden with criticism of Europe's currency union for "experimenting" with the island's fate.

Cypriots were preparing to descend on banks, which reopen Thursday (28 March) with tight controls imposed on transactions to prevent a catastrophic bank run.

Having stirred a controversy by saying that the Cyprus bailout was a template for resolving banking problems in the Union, Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Tuesday (26 March) there were no apparent signs of increased withdrawals of savings within the single currency zone. 

Cyprus is rushing a 'plan B' through Parliament in order to secure an international bailout that would prevent a meltdown of its banking system, while the European Central Bank gave the country until Monday to raise billions.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is meeting Commission President José Manuel Barroso in Moscow today (21 March), slammed the EU for behaving "like a bull in a china shop" on the proposed Cyprus bailout. Meanwhile, a prominent Russian opposition leader said the Kremlin was conducting an operation to save its “dirty money” in Cyprus.

Cyprus overwhelmingly rejected yesterday (19 March) a proposed levy on bank deposits as a condition for a European bailout, throwing international efforts to rescue the latest casualty of the eurozone debt crisis into disarray.

The Cypriot Parliament is unlikely to approve a controversial levy on savings when it goes to the vote today (19 March), a government spokesman said. 

Wolfgang Schäuble, German finance minister, deflected blame on Monday (18 March) for a European bailout deal for Cyprus that foresees hitting small savers in the Mediterranean island's banks, saying this solution had not been a German idea and that he was open to it being changed.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said yesterday (17 March) he had no choice but to accept a painful tax on the country’s bank deposits in return for international aid, saying the alternative was bankruptcy.

EU and IMF officials worked overnight on a rescue package for Cyprus with the aim of presenting the outline of a bailout programme to eurozone finance experts on Friday (15 March) in Brussels, sources said.

EU regulators will order shares of Spain's Bankia be valued at just €0.01 each, a European Commission source said on Tuesday (5 March), meaning shareholders including thousands of ordinary Spaniards will be hit hard in a debt-for-equity swap to boost the bank's finances.

Eurozone finance ministers pledged yesterday (4 March) to agree a bailout for Cyprus by the end of March, but details of how the rescue will be financed are yet to be sorted out.

Nicos Anastasiades, who won a resounding victory in the run-off of the elections held yesterday (24 February), promised to “restore the credibility of Cyprus”. He faces weeks of difficult talks with foreign lenders on a financial rescue for the nation. 

The European Commission will check eurozone countries' draft budgets to verify whether they are in line with EU rules and will ask for changes if they are not, under a deal struck today (20 February) with the European Parliament, which adopted the so-called two-pack bundle of legislation.