“Speaking about Cyprus, interesting is the fact that it adopted the euro back in 2008. We may say that the foresight of the European Union’s institutions, which let it adopt the euro, did not reach even five years and the cost of the mistake wasn’t 10 million euros. At the time, Lithuania was not allowed to adopt the euro due to a microscopic non-compliance with the inflation criterion. Meanwhile, Lithuania managed through the downturn without resorting to external help. It means that there were serious deficiencies in the work of the European Union’s institutions,” he said in an interview to Ziniu Radijas on Tuesday.
However, Cyprus’ hardships should not affect the EU or Lithuania due to the small size of that country, he said.
“In short, we may say that we will not be affected since Cyprus’ economy is small, it accounts for less than 0.2 percent of the euro zone’s economy,” Udrenas said adding that Cyprus did not maintain close economic relations with Lithuania.
“Another thing is whether a some similar scenario could be expected in other Southern European countries. In fact there are issues about economic development in Southern European countries but the reasons of crisis are slightly different in each country going through a downturn,” the adviser said.
Cyprus ’ President Nicos Anastasiades has admitted that the country’s bailout deal agreed in Brussels on Monday would be painful but the country could now make a fresh start after having come a “breath away” from collapse.
