Cyprus Finance Minister: Transfer of responsibilities regarding restrictive measures

Minister of Finance Harris Georgiades spoke on Friday about a game of transferring responsibilities on a European level regarding the imposition of restrictive measures on Cyprus` banking system.

In statements to CNA and commenting on remarks by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi that capital restrictions fell within the responsibility of the European Commission, Georgiades said "the clear position of the government is that the restrictive measures do not constitute a solution to the problems of our banking system, on the contrary their protraction has the exact opposite result."

He added that the government was conveying this position to the European institutions.

"We are registering the fact that on a European level there is embarrassment and it is obvious that there is an effort to transfer the responsibility from one institution to the other," the Minister said, adding however that "it is the Cypriot economy that is paying the price of the decisions."

Georgiades noted that this was why "we will insist on alternative measures that will be based on European decisions and which will truly stabilise our banking system and will create the preconditions for restarting the economy."

Asked about the new decree concerning restrictive measures, which is expected to be issued later on Friday, Georgiades said there would not be any substantive changes to the decree compared to the last one.