Cyprus’s embattled president was last night in talks with Brussels and political rivals to ease the terms of a planned levy on smaller deposit holders as he tried to scrape together a parliamentary majority for a €10bn bailout for the debt-laden island.
President Nicos Anastasiades is still intending to raise €5.8bn from Cypriot bank accounts to help fund the bailout, an unprecedented move that has sparked anger in Cyprus and wider concerns about the safety of eurozone bank deposits.
Cypriot authorities were weighing an additional bank holiday on Tuesday pending emergency parliamentary ratification of the deal, which would mitigate the danger of a bank run. However, officials involved in the talks say a revised deal being discussed in Nicosia, with the blessing of the European Commission, would shift more of the burden on to deposits larger than €100,000.