Anastasiades rebuffs Schaeuble statements
The Cypriot government categoriacally refuted on Monday statements that it had rejected the proposal for smaller bank accounts to be exempted from the one-off tax to support the country’s flagging economy and its credit sector.
In a strongly-worded statement issued by spokesman Christos Stylianides about an hour after the postponement of the vote of the measdures in Parliament in order to amend the measures, Nicosia rejected claims attributed to German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble that Cyprus turned down the idea of a 40 percent levy on accounts in excess of 100,000 euros, and said that the plan was imposed on the Cypriot government.
The statement cites President Nicos Anastasiades as saying that “he categorically denies he was ever given the option of exemption of guaranteed depostis, i.e. deposits up to 100,000 euros.”
The government statement went on to say that «reports about a Gazprom proposal for the acquisition of one of Cyprus’s major banks are completely unfounded.”
