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Swedish women, SAAB or what we have come to due to the Cypriot crisis

21 March 2013 / 23:03:03  GRReporter
8215 reads

The financial woes of Cyprus in recent days have made Greece forget its own problems with the European lenders. The issue of the future of the Cypriot economy is prevailing in the media and social networks, and in the personal conversations of the people of Greece. The interpretations of the developments and moods associated with the Cypriot "no" are ranging from naive revolutionary fervour to apocalyptic forecasts for the collapse of the banking system of the entire euro area and a new financial Armageddon.

The fact is that small Cyprus has surprised Brussels with its inexorability, negatively affected financial markets and has even irritated West Europeans to some extent. Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg notes in connection with Cyprus that its economy relies on the financial sector and the beaches. "Now that the banking system is close to bankruptcy, they will have nothing but the beaches," Greek media cites Borg’s statement, referring to SvD.

The Mediterranean temperament combined with the increased sensitivity of the Greek political class found an expression in the comments of Panos Kamenos, leader of the Greek party ''Independent Greeks''. He wrote on his official profile on Twitter, "The Swedes have the SAAB cars and beautiful women. During the summer, they remain only with the SAAB cars because their women are on the beach with their Cypriot lovers."

Kamenos’ biting indirect response triggered in turn a series of reactions, mainly because of its ultimate irrelevance. Local media quickly reacted to the joke of the leader of Independent Greeks and defined it as "unsuitable" and a sign of "bad taste".

"The difference between Independent Greeks and other parties, which often talk nonsense, is that the others find an excuse in the ideological paralysis. The Independents suffer from pure idiocy," a user from Greece wrote on Facebook, clearly irritated by the political immaturity of the party leader. There followed a series of funnier responses to Kamenos’ "tease".

Users of social networks were quick to spread an illustrative example of the choices available to Swedish women according to the theory of Kamenos:

Kamenos’ comment would have remained unnoticed like the bulk of other information that is flooding the internet if it had not been for the fact that he is a politician with clear ambitions to become the leader of Greece one day. He strongly supports the view that global conspiracy against his country lies behind the Greek crisis and uses any opportunity to promote this opinion in the public domain.

His party is represented in Parliament and it is with a pronounced nationalist deviation. However, on Friday Kamenos requested a meeting with Alexis Tsipras from the radical left SYRIZA, who is diametrically opposite to his political views. He wants Tsipras to support him in a general petition for the resignation of Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras. According to Panos Kamenos and Independent Greeks, Stournaras should be sued because he had supported the first plan for financial support to Cyprus, which included the cuts of deposits.

The Finance Minister did not express concerns about the threats made against him. Stournaras explained before the commission on economic and European affairs in parliament that before the vote on Eurogroup’s rescue plan, he had sought his Cypriot counterpart’s advice on what action to take. "We had a consultation with Michael Sarris (Finance Minister of Cyprus) and we found a compromise. We could not exercise a veto. There was not another proposal filed ... Cyprus took a decision and we supported them. I am not hiding behind Anastasiadis, but I cannot be more Cypriot than the Cypriots," said Stournaras. Kamenos must collect the signatures of 50 members of this parliament in order for his proposal for the resignation of the finance minister to be entered. We are awaiting the developments with our eyes fixed on Twitter.

 

Tags: PoliticsKamenosIndependent GreeksSwedish women
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