Why, we ask ourselves, have the EU/Eurozone in dictating unprecedented and uniquely onerous, bailout conditions on Cyprus risked a potentially zonewide crash of investor confidence in banks and other financial institutions by insisting on a highwayman act on individual nationals' and foreigners' bank accounts?
Could it just be that they see Cyprus as small enough for a reasonably risk free "It's a special case" live trial to see what happens when individuals are forced to take a serious haircut without a serious danger of bringing down the whole house of cards across "the Community". And could it also be that, realising they might force Cyprus to walk away from the Euro, the EU/Eurozone heavies would have been equally happy for that to happen so that they could then watch the consequences,- eg how the transition from the euro back to a national currency would work/be managed, whether runaway inflation, collapse of employment , business and indeed the whole economy ensued, where the tipping points might be and what else might be learned at the expense of the small and unfortunate victim?
Could there really be such a cynical and thuggish an approach by some of the big boys at the expense of the minnows? If you were a Cypriot,- or a citizen of any other small member state,- the Dutchman certainly didn't sound like a bundle of supportive fun, and nor did the rest in Brussells last weekend .If there is any chance of this trial scenario having a grain of reality it would be a wakeup call to all member states to think seriously about where the EU is going and whether it's the sort of entity they really want to belong to, never mind be subject to.
