The governor of Cyprus’s central bank said the government is attacking his institution’s independence at the same time as his family endures death threats from people who lost money in the country’s bailout.
“The independence of the central bank of Cyprus is being attacked at this time,” Panicos Demetriades, who is also a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said in an interview in Dublin yesterday. His ability to manage the situation is being made more difficult by “death threats not only to myself, but toward my children and my wife,” he said.
Customers outside an automated teller machine (ATM) operated by Cyprus Popular Bank Pcl, also known as Laiki Bank, in Nicosia, Cyprus,on March 28, 2013. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
The central bank is at loggerheads with the government of President Nicos Anastasiades as Cyprus finalizes a 17-billion- euro ($22 billion) bailout agreement that will shrink its banking sector and tax deposits of more than 100,000 euros. Demetriades said the government doesn’t have the right to rescind the appointment of deputy governor Spyros Stavrinakis or sell the nation’s gold reserves without the central bank’s consent.
“The government seems to have committed to a sale of state gold without consulting the central bank,” Demetriades said, adding there has been “constant interference in relation to the management of the banks under resolution.”
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