A lot of financial experts and other commentators are up in arms about the Cyprus Solution, which slaps a 40% ‘fee’ on savers with more than 100,000 euros in a couple of local banks. ‘Poor, unsuspecting savers’, allegedly. Many of them are British pensioners lured to Aphrodite’s Isle by a mouth-watering 5% tax rate; and even more are Russsian emigres from whom (à la Russia’s President Medvedev’s enigmatic quoation from Lenin) “the stealing of what has already been stolen continues”. 
Now I’m not anti-capitalist, nor pro-communist but I do wonder how this arrangement is remotely less acceptable than forcing innocent tax-payers to pick up the tab for the profligacy of bankers; because the thing about banks is that we usually rely on them to stay in business and not to mess with our money, but when they fail, we the savers bear some responsiblity for having chosen to let them use it. It’s a business arangement gone wrong – between consenting partners, not between banks and their ‘victims’.
Of course I sympathise with the British pensioners whose retirement bubble has burst so spectacularly – surely the Bank of Cyprus, if not the Laiki bank, was ‘reliable’? It probably was, for many years. But if I were a eurozone taxpayer I would strongly resent having to bail it out when tens of thousands of depositors, attracted by the offer of tax holidays in the sun, held on to their funds.
It’s rather a facile option for small countries to declare themselves ‘nuclear free’. Denmark has done it and the SNP will do it on behalf of a ‘free’ Scotland. But such posturing ignores the realities of life in the 21st C. (Every day for example Denmark may choose to buy electricity from neighbouring countries which run nuclear power stations – only confirming the hypocrisy of its policies.) Militarily, the western alliance (or NATO) ‘protects’ both territories by dint of their membership (unless the Scots go 100% neutral) and uses nuclear weapons to secure such protection. So when Iran and North Korea threaten Europe, as well they might, will the Lilliputians expect special dispensation from nuclear attack or eventual occupation? Maybe, but only total political neutrality will guarantee that. That’s the dilemma. They surely wish to be seen as supporters of European values and defenders of their own – but not, it seems, at any price or ‘in my back yard’. And would any rogue state misguided enough to launch a nuclear attack respect the nuclear neutrality of such defenceless people? I doubt it.
Remember the picture I posted?
Boadicea's Chariot 
You must be logged in to post a comment.