EVERY time the political parties decide to supposedly protect the people we do not know whether to laugh or cry. Neither reaction would be out of place because foolishness is often entertainingly funny, but it could also have long-lasting, harmful consequences.
Last Thursday in the House was one of those days, the majority of our deputies deciding that they should pretend to protect primary residences from “mass” repossessions by approving a bill that would suspend the implementation of the foreclosures law.
It was a ridiculous bill because it was resoundingly pointless and a complete waste of everyone’s time. Its theoretical objective, according to the party that drafted it, was to prevent the banks from repossessing primary residences of people that had fallen on hard times and had fallen behind in their loan repayments. It would be in effect until the end of January, by which time, the five bills on insolvency, which would supposedly “offer a net of protection,” will have been approved.
What was then the point of suspending the law? First, it is practically unfeasible for the “mass foreclosures” that deputies claimed they feared, to have taken place in one month (nothing was going to happen over the Christmas period). The banks do not have enough staff to engage in mass foreclosures in the space of 20 working days. Second, any rational person would know that the priority of the banks would be to focus on the individuals and businesses with loans of millions instead of chasing some unemployed home-owner that has 10 or 20 thousand euro of loan arrears. Third, and most important, the foreclosures law cannot be implemented because the necessary regulations have not yet been approved.
Finance minister Haris Georgiades said on Friday that the law without the regulations is like a car without wheels and engine – it just cannot be used. In what could only be described as a surreal move, AKEL, EDEK, DIKO, Greens and Alliance voted for the suspension of the implementation of a law that cannot be implemented. It can only be implemented once the regulations are approved by the House. AKEL chief Andros Kyprianou countered the regulations were necessary only for auctioning purposes, in which case why had there not been mass foreclosures since the law was approved in September?
We can only conclude that that law passed on Thursday had only one purpose. For the ruthless populists of the above-mentioned parties to fool voters into thinking that they were being protected by caring deputies. So low is the regard of the parties for the average voter’s intelligence that they stage managed this whole farce in the belief that voters would buy it. First they generated alarm by claiming that all hard-up home-owners would be thrown out on the streets by the banks and then they undertook the campaign against the foreclosures bill to protect them from the imaginary danger.
The bill was discussed for weeks and when it was eventually approved an additional six bills that would have made it unenforceable were passed by the caring parties. Four of these were referred by the president to the Supreme Court which ruled them unconstitutional. All this time and effort were wasted on the farce directed by parties, also delaying the release of the sixth tranche of assistance of €436 million, which was scheduled for September.
The European Stability Mechanism released €350m on Monday which was why the parties felt they could suspend the foreclosures law, implementation of which was a condition for the payment. They fooled the lenders as well. The IMF, which was due to release €86m last Friday decided not to do so after the passing of the suspension law.
Our parties’ brazen dishonesty shames the state, portraying it as totally untrustworthy. Why would anyone want to have any dealing with a state that cannot be trusted to honour the agreements it makes. Admittedly, the government had no part in this party-orchestrated scam of receiving funds under false pretences, but it would be no surprise if its ability to negotiate with the troika would be hampered by what has happened. How could it be trusted when the agreements its makes can be so easily annulled by the shameless opportunists of the parties, who are prepared to sacrifice the good of the country for a few votes?
EDEK deputy Nicos Nicolaides, in defending the bill his party had drafted, said that the legislature was sending out the message that it wanted the foreclosures law to go ahead “but through procedures that secure the people at risk of losing their home or small business because of the dire economic situation.” However the only message we received was that our parties are much more interested in deceiving than protecting people and are happy to discredit the state to achieve this. And this is certainly nothing to laugh about.
