THE MEETING between President Demetris Christofias and the unions on Thursday to discuss economic measures is to continue next week with the aim of taking a package of measures to parliament on Thursday.
While the meeting two days ago moved a bit closer to a deal, a week is a long time in politics and the pensions reform is not a small issue. Also with DIKO now out of the government, there is no guarantee of passing the package on Thursday.
Until then it would be premature to comment on who will win and who will lose in this package, although it might not be too hard to guess.
Meanwhile foreign markets continue to be antsy about Cyprus. And even the appointment of a new finance minister may not be enough to restore confidence in Cyprus.
The delay in putting right the economy has been unacceptable, Mari blast aside. The ‘dialogue’ between the unions and the president have been going on for well over a year with no results. All they are doing is prolonging the inevitable.
In the meantime countries like Ireland – the first eurozone country to be hit by the crisis – have been getting on with it.
This week positive news from Ireland is prompting a growing number of investors to look at the troubled economy, said US billionaire Wilbur Ross, who has just invested €300m in Bank of Ireland.
Ross said the deal was fuelled by positive news from Ireland that indicated it was breaking away from its troubled peers in southern Europe and embarking on a solid recovery.
These included the government’s announcement it was ahead of target to bring its budget deficit under control and the lack of protest against a harsh austerity programme,
Although Ireland is mid-way through an unprecedented eight-year cycle of austerity, social unrest is almost non-existent and unlike Greece and Portugal, Ireland is expected to return to growth this year. “Ireland bit the bullet and faced up to it,” Ross said.
What happened in Ireland was that everyone, including civil servants took their cuts in the interests of the country. Here everyone – civil servants, employers and government and parties – are first and foremost looking out for themselves – their pockets and their votes.
If President Demetris Christofias showed any strong leadership tendencies people would be probably willing to sacrifice that bit more to help put things back on track, but when your leaders are only out for themselves it sets the worst of examples.
Even Archbishop Chrysostomos said something sensible this week, commenting that you didn’t need to be an economist or even particularly intelligent to understand the situation. He rightly said it was better that things were a bit difficult for everyone right now rather than end up like Greece.
