European authorities are rushing to agree the details of the fourth Capital Requirements Directive (CRD IV) in part due to concerns about the ability of Cyprus to wrap up negotiations after it assumes the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union from Denmark on July 1. "Put simply, it has a lack of people who are capable of dealing with the range and complexity of all the portfolios and dossiers they've got to deal with", says Graham Bishop, an adviser on EU policy-making. He adds that Cyprus's close ties with Greece could also influence the Presidency's stance on economic and financial policy that relates in some way to the deepening Greek crisis. "The expectation of the Cypriot Presidency to take a clear lead on these things is pretty limited. It doesn't have the resources and it is unable to be independent and even-handed almost by definition on quite a number of financial and economic issues", Bishop says.
Bishop says that with two ECOFIN meetings scheduled before the end of the Danish Presidency – today's get-together, and a second in June – there should be time for the Council to conclude trialogue discussions before Cyprus takes the helm.
The European Parliament is likely to vote on the final CRD IV text in July, says Bishop, but the Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the EU would not affect this process. All that would be left for Cyprus to do is ratify the text at an EU Council meeting, which ought to be a formality, he says.
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