IT IS NOT only the politicians of our tiny plantation who suffer from delusions of grandeur and the mind-boggling belief that they can play risky games with the big boys and win. It is a contagious and incurable disease that affects most members of our ruling elite, making them lose all sense of measure and perspective.
Described as ‘gigantism’ by one astute observer, the first practitioner of this behavioral trait was none other than the late Archbishop Makarios. He genuinely believed that he was a great statesman who could out-think and out-manoeuvre anybody on the world stage. This insane belief in his powers remained intact even after the Turks had occupied a third of the plantation by exploiting our great leader’s catalogue of blunders.
Makarios’ legacy has been kept alive to this day, upheld by his prot?g? and latter-day Ethnarch, Tassos, who also has the conviction that he can take the on big boys, be they at the UN, the EU or in the US and win. It is an insane attitude that our elite continue to embrace passionately, unable to recognise its dangers.
This week, our leading bankers illustrated that they are the equals of the politicians in nursing delusions of grandeur. The head honchos of the Bank of Cyprus were in Athens on Thursday to announce a bid to take over Greece’s Emboriki Bank of which the biggest shareholder is the state. Tiny by European standards, with no experience of major takeovers, without the cash to finance the deal (part of the payment is in shares) they offered 3.78 billion euros, which is just below its market capitalisation.
What is even more interesting is that the B of C offered 680 million euros more than France’s Credit Agricole, which also made a bid for Emboriki. How sensible does that sound? Credit Agricole is 10 times bigger than the B of C, has takeover know-how and offered cash. It is a high-risk expansion which could easily go wrong and sink the B of C and with it the Cyprus economy.
It may fill some with great patriotic pride that the B of C (also known as the bank of four continents), if it pulls off the deal, would become the second biggest bank in Greece but anyone with half a brain would be praying that the Greek government rejected the offer and spared our economy the huge risks involved in playing games with the big boys of the banking world.
BUT WHY does the B of C want to buy the state-owned Emboriki and be saddled with a heavily unionised workforce, which stridently opposes the bank’s privatisation? An article yesterday’s Politis, by one of Cyprus’ best-informed and most astute business writers, Demetris Georgiades, argues that the primary concern of the B of C head honchos was to protect their positions.
Holding on to high-powered, status-giving posts at all costs, for as long as possible, is another behavioral trait that characterises the members of our ruling elite. Chairman of the board, Vasilis Rologis with CEO Andreas Eliades were spurred into action when it was heard that Greece’s Piraeus Bank (PB) was preparing a takeover bid of the B of C, of which it holds a six per cent share.
If PB succeeded, Rologis would be booted off the board as would most other members. Eliades may have been spared as he has a good track record. In order to ward off the PB, Rologis and Eliades decided to bid for Emboriki and in three days they had prepared an offer for it – as if they were buying a neighbourhood grocery store.
The fact that they put together a bid in three days is indicative of how little research was done about Emboriki. Any serious organisation would have devoted months to researching all aspects of the takeover subject, but not the great brains at the B of C, who in a few days decided to spend 3.78 billion euros. And for what? So that Rologis could remain chairman of the board, Eliades CEO and Polis Polyviou can continue to collect a million plus pounds a year as the group’s legal advisor?
CHAIRMAN Rologis was like a man possessed during the press conference held on Thursday at Athens’ Grande Bretagne hotel to announce the bank’s plans. Greece’s business hacks, who were all there, looked thoroughly bemused about what they were hearing from Rologis, who took centre stage uttering platitudes, sounding like politician rather than a banker.
“We will not be leaving, but we are here to stay,” he announced, gesticulating wildly and occasionally banging his fist on the table. He was on an emotional high – like a kid who’s been told he could play football with the big boys – and could not control his enthusiasm for the deal, which may have had something to do with the fact that, if it went through, it would make him chairman of the second largest bank in Greece.
That would be an astonishing achievement for the ultra-ambitious Rologis whose main claim to fame was his lamentably unsuccessful stint as chairman of Cyprus Airways. But failure has never stopped the inexorable rise of the man, who now hopes to tower over Greece’s economy like a banking colossus. If he pulls this off, I will salute the man, and then open an account with Barclays.
LAIKI BANK was faced with a similar problem, according to Georgiades, a few months back. It main shareholder, HSBC wanted to replace the key members of the board, including executive chairman Kikis Lazarides, who had run Laiki as if it were his personal business for more than two decades.
The bank was not doing very well and had acquired a bad reputation abroad for its direct involvement in Milosevic money laundering. For HSBC, a change of leadership was an imperative, but it met with resistance from Kikis and his supporters who would not budge. This was one of the factors behind HSBC deciding to sell its holding to Greek financial organisation Marfin.
Kikis and his entourage, according to Georgiades, backed the deal because they felt their positions would be safe if Marfin bought out HSBC. They were wrong. Once Marfin took control the first thing it did was to arrange a date for the retirement of the Kikis crowd.
AN EVEN crazier idea than the purchase of Emboriki by the Bank of four continents was our government’s attempt to gain access to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), with the status of observer.
Our government failed to persuade the Islamic governments that it had the right to sit at meetings as observer, but did not make a great fuss about it, as the move was unlikely to have endeared it to the Greek Cypriots. In fact none of the media reported the government’s effort to turn us as into an Islamic Republic. Next year, when we make the wearing of head-scarves obligatory for schoolgirls as part of Pefkios’ uniform reform they may accept us.
And when the fridge technician in the north Talat accused the Ethnarch of pursuing “insane and comical” policies he was attacked by our unsmiling government spokesman Chris Pashiardis for overstepping the limits. However neither Pashiardis nor any of the media reported the context of Talat’s rude remarks. Had Greek Cypriots heard about the Ethnarch’s attempt to join the OIC, they would have agreed with Talat.
BUT IF our omniscient leader believes we must join the Islamic Conference, there must be a very good reason for it. It may be that he has abandoned the objective of a European solution for the Cyprob and will now pursue an Islamic solution, which would be more acceptable to our Turkish Cypriots brothers and sisters.
Despite flirting with the Islamic world, on Friday he reverted to his Christian roots, using religious references to silence the DISY Fuhrer. A mindless public debate was taking place regarding Nik’s refusal to return to the National Council because the Ethnarch had not kept his promise to change the way the Council malfunctioned and to stop the leaking of what was being discussed at meetings.
Tassos said there was no way he could stop the leaks by politicians taking part
in meetings and added: “If in the case of leaks, the saying, ‘he who is without sin cast the first stone’ applies, the first person without sin is me as you all know.” We are still waiting for him to cast the first stone at the sinners of the National Council.
WATCHING our new foreign minister Giorgos Lillikas during his first visit to Athens it became apparent that he has one important advantage over his predecessor, the Shistris waiter – he is much taller. When he stood next to his Greek counterpart Dora Bakoyianni, he did not look like one of the seven dwarfs.
Apart from his height advantage, he also talks a much tougher liberation struggle than the soft-spoken and gentle Iacovou. Speaking to Greece’s Sky TV, freedom fighter Lillikas announced that we would be adopting a tougher stance towards Turkey over the next few months. Nicosia would step up the pressure on Turkey to fulfill its obligations to the EU, he stated.
Now that he will turn the screw on Turkey, the poor and humble peasant boy from Paphos will finally be allowed into the pseudo-Islamic Republic’s ruling elite of world-beaters.
WHEN HE is not talking tough to the Turks, Lillikas also comes up with some magnificent pearls of diplomatic wisdom. Speaking to hacks after his meeting with Dora, he said: “The threat of a veto is more effective than the exercise of the veto.” How effective this threat will be after we have used it a few times only Panyia’s Talleyrand can tell us. I suspect that the reps of the other EU states would be on the floor in fits of laughter every time they hear Talleyrand using his veto threat.
In an interview given to the bicommunal paper Dialogue recently our very own Talleyrand explained that he was not a nationalist despite his opposition to the A-plan. “You cannot get further from nationalism than I am. In fact, local nationalist newspapers have often portrayed me as a Turk.” He omitted to mention that this had happened before he became a nationalist. Since his rebirth as a hard-line, Ethnarch-worshipping nationalist, nobody has accused him of being a Turk.
FOR 32 years refugees were being exploited by our cynical politicians, who fed them with a daily diet of lies and false hopes garnished with patriotic rhetoric. Now it is the turn of the Turks to exploit the hapless refugees with their compensation committee. They have compensated three Greek Cypriots for their properties in the north, provoking the wrath of the bash-patriotic politicians and other self-appointed national saviours, who have accused them of collaborating with the enemy.
But how many refugees will be compensated by the pseudo-committee, recognised by the European Court of Human Rights? Ten or maybe 20. And if the committee gets the go-ahead from the ECHR, it will compensate three refugees a year. The rest who apply for compensation will continue to live on false hope, with the added danger of having to face the patriotic lynch mob – if their names are revealed – who are baying for the blood of refugee collaborators.
FIRST LADY Fotini Papadopoulou was at a cultural event in gay Paris on Monday to give a lecture about the mediaeval history of Cyprus. The event, organised by Senator and chairman of the France-Cyprus Friendship Group at the French Senate, Andre Rouvire, was under the auspices of the President of French Senate, Christian Poncelet, according to a PIO press release.
The PIO reported that the event was attended by “senators, representatives, diplomats, members of local authorities, people of the letters and the arts, academics, journalists and crowds of people”. Lectures on the mediaeval history of Cyprus are always guaranteed to attract big crowds of people in Paris.
Mrs Papadopoulou spoke about “the arrival of the Lusignians in Cyprus, giving the political, social and cultural dimension that their influence had on Cypriot society during the Frankish period, in which the roads of the history of Cyprus and France met and contributed to the development and enrichment of European civilization.” She also referred to Cyprus under the Ottomans, the British, the anti-colonial struggle and the Turkish invasion and occupation, reported the PIO.
The French intelligentsia who turned up to hear about the Cyprus’ mediaeval period, which lasted until 1974, must have learnt a few things from Mrs Papadoupoulou. She might not be a historian, an art historian, a scholar or a researcher but when it comes to giving lectures on our mediaeval history she is a font of knowledge.
INCIDENTALLY, the CyBC considered the first lady’s lecture, important enough to send the presidential journalist, the white-socks wearing, Yiannakis Nicolaou to Paris to cover this significant cultural event. The corporation also rented satellite time so it could beam the footage of the event back to Cyprus so it could be shown on the main evening news. I am informed that Nicolaou was in Paris, not because he is the Ethnarchic family’s favourite reporter, but because he is the Corporation’s expert on the mediaeval history of Cyprus.
