IMF: Cyprus meeting targets, must continue financial reforms News
IMF: Cyprus meeting targets, must continue financial reforms

[JURIST] The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU) [official websites] released a statement [text] Monday indicating that Cyprus has made significant strides toward economic recovery, and must continue to make reforms in order to achieve full recovery. Following a meeting to review progress on Cyprus’ March 2013 economic rescue deal [Guardian report], the groups stated that Cyprus has met fiscal targets for the first part of 2015 with “substantial margins” and that unemployment had fallen. The statement calls for legislation, structural reform and privatization, and “continued sound public finances… to ensure that public debt returns to an acceptable level while steering public spending toward growth-enhancing activities.”

Cyprus is not the only European Union nation to experience significant economic distress in recent years. The debt crisis in Greece began in 2009 with a down-grade of a credit rating, and in the following years, has led Greece to borrow hundreds of billions of euros. Earlier this month the country passed [JURIST report] a second set of economic reform measures containing further judicial and banking reforms. Also earlier this month, the nation voted [JURIST report] not to accept the bailout deal offered by Europe. Also this month, as the country was preparing for the vote, protesters in Greece gathered [JURIST report] in the tens of thousands, holding rival rallies that drew attention to the split within the country as the referendum approached. In April nineteen eurozone creditors held a meeting [JURIST report] in Latvia to demand the completion of the economic reform program agreed to be Greece necessary to avoid a Grecian default or exit from the euro. Earlier that month the European Central Bank expressed concerns [JURIST report] about Greece’s draft law that prohibits the government from foreclosing on primary residences where borrowers can prove total wealth requirements as ripe for unscrupulous debtors to engage in strategic defaults without repercussions. In March Greece’s parliament passed an anti-poverty bill [JURIST report] that would provide free electricity and food-stamps to low-income households.