Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

We are also meeting as the International Citizens debt Audit Network (ICAN) which brings together debt activists across Europe, and mobilises people to organise debt audits to publicly uncover where our debt came from, who benefited from it and whether and how it should be repaid.

First up is a public meeting with activists looking at the legitimacy of debts in their country. Cyprus has a new debt audit campaign responding to the rapidly emerging crisis in that country.

Cyprus’ debt crisis is the latest in a long line of inter-connected crises which threatens a domino effect across Europe. It’s particularly interesting because, although the size of the bailout is relativity small, the idea of bailing out the Russian oligarchs invested in Cyprus is proving particularly galling to governments that were less worried when bailing out their own oligarchs.

Like Iceland and Ireland, Cyprus’ economy boomed as it became a playground for over powerful banks. Those banks have 8 times the assets of the entire output of the economy. Industry accounts for a minute fraction of output. Significant growth is built on the tax haven Tax haven A territory characterized by the following five independent criteria:
(a) opacity (via bank secrecy or another mechanism such as trusts);
(b) low taxes, sometimes as low as zero for non-residents;
(c) easy regulations permitting the creation of front companies and no necessity for these companies to have a real activity on the territory;
(d) lack of cooperation with the inland revenue, customs and/or judicial departments of other countries;
(e) weak or non-existent financial regulation. Switzerland, the City of London and Luxembourg receive the majority of the capital placed in tax havens. Others exist, of course, such as the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands, Hong Kong and other exotic locations. status of the economy, with particularly huge amounts of capital flowing from the pockets of Russian billionaires.

Such an economy couldn’t weather Europe’s economic crisis, especially as Cyprus was so closely intertwined with the Greek economy, notably through the mass purchase of Greek bonds once Greece was already in crisis. As part of Greece’s bond Bond A bond is a stake in a debt issued by a company or governmental body. The holder of the bond, the creditor, is entitled to interest and reimbursement of the principal. If the company is listed, the holder can also sell the bond on a stock-exchange. write-down, Cyprus lost a fortune. Austerity measures have reduced public sector wages by 15% and state pensions by up to 10%, with VAT expected to rise. Nonetheless, without further funds or restructuring of its debts, Cyprus will be unable to make its debt payments in June.

At least half of any ‘bailout’ would go straight to the domestic banks. Unwilling to effectively ‘bail out’ the bondholders and depositors in Cyprus’ banks – suspected to be largely Russian oligarchs and gangsters – or to reward a footloose tax haven, there is now serious talk of ‘burning the bondholders’ – making them take the hit for the crisis and reducing debt.

Expectation is that this is unlikely to come about. Like it or not, European governments and institutions know they have invested too much in their project of forcing the public of peripheral Europe to pay for a crisis of finance. But the more countries that fall victim of these unjust policies, the more unsustainable the whole European economy becomes.