Cyprus president rejects FinMin’s resignation
Cyprus’s President Nicos Anastasiades did not accept Finance Minister Harris Georgiades’s resignation offer despite strong demands by all opposition parties, a statement said on Monday.
The demands were repeated after Parliament passed urgent legislation on Sunday night permitting government guarantees needed to complete a deal for the takeover of ailing state-owned Cyprus Cooperative Bank by Hellenic Bank.
The opposition accused the minister of being responsible for the collapse of the bank and its sale to Hellenic Bank under unfavorable conditions for the state, including the issue of a 2.5-billion-euro bond in favor of the purchaser and guarantees against unforeseen future losses.
Georgiades said that he had offered his resignation from the first moment demands were made several days ago.
In a reply to the opposition’s demands, Anastasiades said, “I believed and I still believe that accepting it would not be warranted since the Cyprus Cooperative Bank’s problems were neither created nor were a result of political decisions by the finance minister.”
He said Georgiades enjoys his “absolute trust” because he achieved a turnaround for the economy, which had been on the verge of disaster and is now on a course of steady and viable development.
[Xinhua]
