Athyglisverð grein í kýpversku dagblaði um efnahagsvandræði á þeirri eyju sem pistlahöfundur segir orsakast af popúlisma og þeim þjóðlega sið kýpverja að kenna útlendingum um öll vandræði.

,,We’ve paid the ultimate price of avoiding responsibility.

 IN CYPRUS we have a habit of blaming everyone else for our problems. We are always the victims of others, invariably foreigners who are hell-bent on causing us harm or destroying us, either because they are envious of us or want to subjugate us. This narrative has been used by politicians for decades as it allows them to absolve themselves of any responsibility for their poor judgement, mistakes and avoidance of difficult decisions.

The Christofias government and its loyal AKEL followers were the masters of this practice, blaming the continuously deteriorating state of the economy, over the last three years, on the world economic crisis, the systemic weaknesses of capitalism, the thieving markets, the neo-liberal ideology of the EU and, ultimately, the Cypriot banks. The government which was increasing its spending every year while revenue was falling, failed to protect the Cypriot banks from the consequences of the Greek haircut, refused to take measures to reduce the budget deficit and was excluded from the markets insisted that it was blameless. It was a victim of alien forces. This political immaturity was at its apogee ever since the Eurogroup decision for a levy on deposits was announced last week.

Politicians, newspapers and TV pundits launched a concerted attack on the Eurogroup for its lack of solidarity, the German government for its vindictiveness towards Cyprus and the IMF for its plain nastiness. While there may have been some justification in these emotional outbursts, nobody was willing to concede that, perhaps, we were squarely to blame for putting ourselves in the position of needing a €17bn loan to save our economy from bankruptcy.

It was not the Eurogroup who told us to live beyond our means for years, building up the public debt as the state gave annual pay rises of six to seven per cent, outrageously high pensions and obscene retirement bonuses to public employees who were constantly growing in numbers.  It was not Germany’s fault that our populist politicians, whose only concern was their re-election, happily sanctioned this profligacy because it also benefited them, politically and financially. And the European Commission was certainly not to blame for the Christofias government continuously ignoring its warnings and exhortations to put the precarious public finances in order or that it stalled the talks with the troika for months, allowing the situation to steadily deteriorate.

The avoidance of responsibility and blame-shifting is always combined with a poisonous populism that has led us from one disaster to another. It was this populist mentality that caused all the parties to take an uncompromising stance against the deposits’ levy that President Anastasiades agreed with the Eurogroup last weekend. They claimed their heroic negativity would cause havoc in the markets and force the EU to re-consider its outrageous proposal, while they foolishly assured people that Russia would come to our rescue.

Not only was their folly exposed by Thursday when it became apparent there would be no help from Moscow, but the practical consequences of defiant populism were evident as the re-structuring of Laiki Bank was announced and the deposits levy was no longer an option. The government spent all Friday in efforts to prevent the Bank of Cyprus from suffering Laiki’s fate, bailing in uninsured deposits to the tune of 25 per cent as a compromise. By Friday, populist deputies recognised that Plan A was not such a bad idea but it was too late. Not too late however, for some parties to carry on engaging in populist irresponsibility. AKEL abstained from the vote on the bill for the restructuring of the banks that was a condition for the bailout that would spare us from bankruptcy. It even proposed an amendment that if approved, would render the law unacceptable to the EU.

It was rejected, a rare defeat for the politics of populist, which remains the root cause of all our problems. If it had been approved, there would be no bailout and economic catastrophe would follow, which our deputies could have blamed on our nasty partners’ lack of solidarity. The resolution of Laiki they had blamed on the governor of the Central Bank, as it had nothing to do with their rejection of the deposits’ levy on Tuesday. Populism may have been shown up in the last week, but it was the politician who took the responsibility for a very difficult, but correct, decision that came under attack from everyone - President Anastasiades. It showed how much we appreciate real leadership in this country.

 

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/opinions/our-view-we-ve-paid-ultimate-price-avoiding-responsibility/20130324

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