News agency Bloomberg said that German deputy finance minister Steffen Kampeter told the chairwoman of the budget committee in the lower house of parliament that the “federal government endorses the release of the next tranche to Cyprus”. In the letter, Kampeter cited the steps Cyprus has taken in the second quarter of the year to implement the bailout programme “and the confirmation of prior actions by the troika,” as the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank are collectively known. Bloomberg said that the Netherlands also supported the disbursement of the €1.5 billion (the next tranche) to Cyprus by its international lenders.

The chairman of the Eurogroup comprising of the eurozone’s finance ministers, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, told Dutch parliament Cyprus’ bailout agreement would be amended in light of a positive troika report, Bloomberg said. Cyprus has had to force losses on the depositors of its biggest bank and shut down its second largest bank in March in return for a €10 billion bailout.

Parliament approved this week legislation allowing the recapitalisation of co-operative banks, following a late-night session. After rejecting two bills and later realising the implications – another raid on deposits – lawmakers passed them in a second vote on Friday morning by changing a few words so they could pass as a different text. This allowed parliament to vote the bills through. One bill related to transferring the supervision of co-ops to the Central Bank, and the other concerned the automatic conversion of convertible bonds into shares, a measure relevant to the recapitalisation of Hellenic Bank. The bills were crucial to the release of the €1.5 billion tranche.

Source: Cyprus Mail