英闻天下——414 European Ministers Working on Cyprus Bailout

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　　An agreement on rescue loan package is expected to be reached at a regular meeting in Brussels with tough measures to shrink banking³ sector⁴, raise taxes and privatize state assets in Cyprus.

 

　　The bailout is estimated to cost around 10 billion euros. Even if it is reached at the meeting, it still has to be approved by parliaments in several eurozone nations.

 

　　Spanish Finance Minister Luis De Guindos believes the plan is crucial to the future of the eurozone.

 

　　"Even though Cyprus is a small country, here, right now, there are neither small nor big countries. We have to see it from the point of view of the potential effect that it could have."

 

　　German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says it is a long and difficult way to solve debt problems in Cyprus.

 

　　"Cyprus problems are well known: a government debt very high, deficit⁵ very high, the economic situation is as it is, the banking sector is outsized, that is why the preconditions to solve this problem are going to be very, very difficult."

 

　　Meanwhile, the European Central Bank has pushed for a swift deal, even threatening to cut the country's financial system off from an emergency funding scheme.

 

　　Cyprus, which first applied⁶ for a bailout last summer, is not in any imminent⁷ danger of bankruptcy as it faces its next bond redemption only in June.

 

　　Cypriot new government, which took power last month, has indicated it will sell state assets and raise its corporate⁸ tax to increase revenues as part of a solution to ease the current financial crisis.

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