The tide is turning for "Brave Cyprus".
......
The upshot is that Cyprus has become a cautionary tale in the European Union's most failed and yet most consistent negotiation policy:
bullying.
Cyprus is small and largely unable to fight back, either politically or financially. Its shabby treatment is consistent with how the EU has treated other countries when it perceives it has the upper hand, including Greece and Portugal. In each of those cases, some members of the EU have relied on cultural stereotypes to explain why financial negotiations had to turn against a country. In the case of Greece, leaders including Germany's Angela Merkel painted the country as full of lazy, pension-reliant, sun-worshipping Mediterranean gadabouts to justify the need for austerity. It's not just that it's offensive, it's false: before the crisis raised unemployment rates, you'll find that Greeks, Italians and Spaniards all worked longer far hours than Germans every week. Somehow those inconvenient facts get lost in the economic finger-pointing.
These EU rationales are unflatteringly tribal, and ill befit a monetary union that is supposed to be sophisticated and rational. The German intelligence agency reportedly informed leaders that Cyprus was a haven for money-laundering, which was trotted out as a bizarre reason last week that taking money from Cypriot bank accounts was a perfectly legitimate option. Cyprus's banks have high interest rates on savings, and it is a tax haven, which has attracted "hot money" from Russia and other countries. No one in Europe complained about that when it was helping the Cypriot economy, but now that a bailout is required, the equation has changed.
The character of EU negotiations – sloppy, disaster-prone, often bullying – is important to the US, too. There will be several visible results.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... s-eu-trade
