Sarris says farewell WHO is to blame? Politicians and economists are all likely to be in the dock over the collapse of Laiki Bank, Cyprus’s second-largest. Nicos Anastasiades, the president, has now put three supreme court judges on the trail, telling them to report back on the whole affair by July. Some prominent Cypriots may be prosecuted; a few could even end up in jail.One target of the investigation will be Michalis Sarris, the finance minister, who resigned on April 2nd after only five weeks in the job. His credibility sank after he agreed, in a first abortive round of bail-out negotiations with the European Union, to impose a “haircut” on small savers with less than €100,000 ($ 129,000) in their accounts. That would have reduced losses for wealthy Russian account holders whose business provides work for thousands of highly paid Cypriot lawyers and accountants. Mr Sarris then tried but failed to persuade Moscow to give Cyprus a €5 billion loan (on top of an earlier one of €2.5 billion), which could have rescued Laiki without any haircut at all.The former World Bank technocrat also faces a grilling over his eight months as chairman of…
The Economist: Europe
