THE VISIT by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, and her and others’ clear support for presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades, sparked a pre-election spat yesterday over the allegations of money laundering coming from Germany in recent weeks.
Clearly miffed by their opponent taking centre stage at the high-profile European People’s Party (EPP) summit Limassol, AKEL candidate Stavros Malas, and EDEK-backed Giorgos Lillikas laid into the DISY leader, accusing him of failing to defend the island’s good name to his EU buddies.
Anastasiades met with a number of prominent leaders at the EPP, meeting several on the sidelines, and having a private tete-a-tete with Merkel, Although she expressed some solidarity with Cyprus in terms of a bailout, the German Chancellor was not soft on the need for economic reforms.
“The [summit’s] message was clear: implement what we’re asking so we can give you the loan. That means harsh austerity and privatisations,” Malas said yesterday. “In other words, Merkel’s ‘love’ turns out, in the case of Cyprus, to be a love that kills, and Anastasiades’ like-minded friends did not come as friends to Cyprus but to offer their bitter pills to solve problems, just as they did with Greece, Portugal and other countries with tragic social consequences,” he added. Malas said the EPP conference was merely a ”fiesta” aiming only at harnessing support for Anastasiades’ election.
Lillikas was equally vitriolic. “I would have expected that from the moment Germany’s chancellor was in Cyprus, that its stance would change somewhat,” he said. “I would have expected Anastasiades to convince Merkel. Instead, rather than convincing her it seems that he has chosen to convince himself [that the allegations are true].”
Lillikas said the main aim of the money laundering allegations emanating from Germany was to see all Russian money removed from Cyprus.
His backer, EDEK leader Yiannakis Omirou said it was obvious that there had been “no real binding expression of support” for Cyprus’ predicament from the summit. He also took a stab at dispelling the impression that Cyprus was a haven for money launderers and tax avoiders.
Omirou quoted figures from an assessment done by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body that tackles money-laundering, which places Cyprus well ahead of Germany in terms of actions taken to combat the phenomenon.
The figures were presented to EU ambassadors by Finance Minister Vassos Shiarly earlier in the week but the government has not made much noise publicly about the significant comparisons between Cyprus and Germany. It has only issued denials about the island’s alleged lack of transparency without entering into a public confrontation with paymaster Germany.
Again yesterday Shiarly limited himself to saying: “All this talk is nothing more than allegations, coming from third-party publications aiming to harm us. We can substantiate that Cyprus is not part of such actions and therefore we will be successful at the end of the day.”
According to the FATF figures, Cyprus is totally compliant in 12 areas when it comes to combating money laundering, whereas Germany is totally compliant in only five.
Cyprus ranks 7th out of 17 countries in areas of full compliance, whereas Germany is only placed 14th, just ahead of Greece, Slovakia and Luxembourg.
FATF also reported that “substantial proceeds of crime” were being generated in Germany, estimated to lie between €40 billion and €60 billion, the Financial Mirror reported.
“It is not very well known that Cyprus has a fairly reasonable record on money laundering,” said economist Fiona Mullen yesterday. She added that Cyprus needed to work more on the image that it is a money laundering destination, and be seen to be implementing measures to combat financial crime.
The fact that Cyprus was not higher up on the FATF list shows that more work needs to be done to promote the island’s image, Mullen said. There is also a “knee-jerk assumption that everything that comes out of Russia is dirty and therefore gets laundered,” she added.
Mullen said that money-laundering allegations were coming from the German opposition as a way of putting pressure on Merkel ahead of elections in Germany later this year.
Hitting back yesterday, DISY spokesman Haris Georgiades said that Anastasiades was trying to build alliances in Europe, and criticised those “on the fringes” of failing to understand the significance of the efforts being made.
Yesterday, Anastasiades also criticised “those choosing petty political expediencies instead of looking at the essence” at a time Cyprus was in deep crisis and needed help from its EU partners.
He suggested Lillikas keep a close eye on what Merkel says before jumping to conclusions about whether his “interventions” were effective or not. He also said Merkel’s presence in Cyprus carried more weight than anything Lillikas has said.
