Both President Nicos Anastasiades and the EU's economy commissioner Olli Rehn have recently referred to 1974 to remind Cypriots of their resilience and how they once overcame adversity to perform an economic miracle, the thinking being that surely they could do it again.
The sheer scale of the current setback has yet to be felt, but politicians obviously feel the crisis is worthy of comparison to the Greek-inspired coup and Turkish invasion, when almost 40 per cent of the island came under occupation, a third of the country's population was displaced and most of the infrastructure for agriculture and tourism was lost.
The Sunday Mail spoke to refugees, economists and former politicians to see if the comparison can really stick. The result was mixed though the general consensus is: apples and oranges.
Businessman and former DISY deputy Dinos Lordos lost everything in 1974 when he was forced to flee Famagusta. He went on to rebuild his business empire, investing in property, construction and hotels.
“It is a totally different situation and cannot be compared. In ‘74, we had a complete national disaster. It was much worse. People died. We didn’t know where our friends and relatives were, who was alive and who dead.
“As refugees, we didn’t know where we could stay. In winter, there were queues for clothes. Around 120,000 people lived in camps. Many migrated. They went to Europe and the Arab countries, and came back educated and with technical know-how. Today, it’s much easier,” he said.
Lordos argued Cypriots were a lot more to blame for the current disaster.
“We made bad investments as a state and created this financial monster, which was beyond our size and capabilities. We couldn’t support it.”
The government expanded the deficit and the banks made massive mistakes and both would have continued doing so if the crisis did not hit, he added.
Cyprus needs time to get out of the mess, but also to change the way things are done, he said.
Asked whether Cyprus is worse off now because it doesn’t have the international sympathy and aid that poured into Cyprus after the war, or a burgeoning tourism sector to pin hopes on, Lordos was emphatic.
“It’s wrong to assume it’s worse now. We have sympathy today as well, though it’s not tangible. Even while we had aid from Greece, the US and others in 1974, we still had people in camps for many years. It took years to build all those new homes.”
One factor that worked in Cyprus’ favour at the time was that it had its own currency which it could manipulate while foreign governments turned a blind eye.
“The Bank of Cyprus was more bankrupt then than it is now. We printed more Cyprus pounds and confidence returned quickly. But the scale of disaster today cannot be compared. Let’s not exaggerate, it’s horrible but it’s only money,” he said.
“Sure, it’s a major disaster for any country, but we have our infrastructure in tact, our assets, cars, tractors, households, hotels. In 1974, all our hotels were in Famagusta and Kyrenia.
“What we need now is to create jobs. That should be the number one objective of the government and the unions.”
The successful businessmen was critical of both, noting that the unions in ‘74 agreed to reduce all salaries and benefits, compared to now.
He called on the government to improve the regulatory environment, curb bureaucracy and encourage businesses to move forward, not fill them with insecurity about the potential for more mistakes in decision-making.
He referred specifically to the fiasco over title deeds in which 130,000 homeowners still don’t have legal ownership of their homes, even though they may have paid in full because their title deeds are held by banks as collateral for building developers’ mortgages.
“There are 130,000 houses that cannot be transferred to their rightful owners. They need to get on with it, create a temporary legal environment so they can be transferred. Create the conditions so that those who lost the most in deposits now get put ahead in line to receive a loan, providing they have a good business proposition.
“They need to reduce interest rates to let the economy breathe and guide it to new industries so we snatch triumph from the mouth of the lion,” he said.
A prominent figure in Cypriot politics who did not wish to be named agreed that the proposed comparison does not work.
“It’s simplistic to say if we survived then, we can survive now. It was a different situation, different conditions. The only common element is that both are a crisis. Just because we succeeded then, it doesn’t mean we can now unless we do what should be done.”
He added that the handling of the current crisis highlighted the shortcomings of politicians who are “not up to the game”.
“They don’t want to realise we live in different world now and stop being populist,” he added.
Lecturer of economics and economic history Alex Apostolides warned against comparing “two very different kinds of disasters”.
While the economy was butchered after the invasion as it ate up all the country’s capital, the unintended consequence was to take farmers out of the fields and into factories and hotels, increasing their productivity.
“The first shoe factories where found in refugee tents. We had a huge, poor labour force ready to offer cheap labour. We became the China of the Middle East.
“In the current case, the crisis has arbitrarily killed banking and made the economy go from a very modern economy to a cash economy while rapidly reducing the ability of money to circulate quickly, which in turn reduces GDP income.”
At the same time, he argues, the government does not have many guns in its arsenal to fight the crisis. It cannot give money or land to invest in tourism as it did after the war.
The money from the €10bn troika bailout will go to paying back what the government has already received.
“Here, we have a combination of a banking crisis, a government borrowing too much, and the Greek haircut which blew up part of our economy. It’s worse now.”
According to Apostolides, the solution is to liberalise the economy fully, open up closed professions, sort out the title deeds fiasco, shrink the public sector, let the private sector take over and aim to put Cyprus in the list of top ten countries for doing business around the world.
“Did you know that there is no pharmacy in the Mall (in Nicosia) because the rules state that pharmacies have to be built using bricks and that 51 per cent of the pharmacy has to be owned by the pharmacist which is why you don’t see Boots in Cyprus?”
He added: “The government cannot be the driver here. There are a lot of people who are keen, but need direction. We need to invest in young people and skills and find ways to invest in start-ups. We didn’t have venture capitalists before because it was more profitable to put money in banks.”
Former foreign and commerce minister Nicos Rolandis also agrees that the Turkish invasion was a “much more serious event”, as was its impact. Businesses lost all their tangible assets, the country lost its airport.
However, recovery was made easier by the crisis in Lebanon in the mid-1970s which saw thousands of monied Lebanese move to Limassol.
He notes that society has changed a lot since then. “Society in those years was quite different. There was not so much consumerism as there is today. So people will not adapt easily to the situation as we could adapt back then because their expectations are much higher.
“Also, today we don’t have capital to invest, and if we do, it’s not easy to decide how to invest and take chances in a very fragile economy,” he said.
Rolandis argued there was room for growth in tourism as current levels have dropped from the heyday when he was minister and Cyprus recorded 2.7 million tourists generating €2.2bn.
The former minister notes that continuing to offer financial services to foreigners would be very difficult as the country has lost its credibility.
The only silver lining, said the former minister, is the prospect of exploiting Cyprus’ natural gas reserves though this won’t be possible for another six to seven years.
However, it will take a massive investment surpassing Cyprus’ €10bn bailout, and depend greatly on projected sale prices for 2020-2040
“My last point is the geopolitical factor. Turkey. And this is quite serious. Most leaders don’t want to take this factor into account. It’s wrong. Look what happened to us in 1974 when we ignored Turkey.”
Rolandis said the solution of the Cyprus problem and transportation of gas via Turkey to Europe was the best way to move forward and enjoy the benefits of the island’s hydrocarbon reserves.
Professor of finance Stavros Zenios agrees one cannot compare the suffering from a war and dislocation to now but argues that the economic indicators are very comparable.
“Look at the economic impact. We lost something like 25 per cent of our wealth with the stroke of a pen,” he said referring to the €5.8bn bail-in Cypriot depositors had to come up with.
“It puts at risk between 9-25 per cent of the country’s GDP. Of course this kind of impact is of the same order of magnitude as what happened in ‘74.”
The only other country which suffered such an economic impact from political developments is Finland with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it recovered within three years, he said.
Regarding Cyprus’ prospects, Zenios argued: “This could be a slow death like a frog in a slowly boiling pan that does not jump out. But I’d like to think and already see signs of Cypriot society re-energising itself and rediscovering the values of ‘74 which helped us get out of that mess.”
It’s about shifting the economy to other directions, using Cyprus’ highly educated workforce, favourable tax regime, professional services.
“If we clean up our banks, and have an aggressive campaign we could still be a business centre, though not a banking centre,” he said.
And like after the invasion, Cypriots should be prepared to do jobs that they previously thought were dirty.
“We should stop exporting currency by looking for cheap labour. We should become entrepreneurs and provide cheap labour.”
The professor was optimistic that Cypriots’ historically stoic response to trouble would see them through the tough times ahead.
“I’m worried about the political system though, and whether they realise we’re in this together. There is an attitude of playing the blame game.”
Zenios called on politicians to let the committee of inquiry do its work and get on with a strategy to fix the economy, improve competitiveness and create jobs as a first priority, not worry about salaries and benefits.
“If there is a hole in the boat, don’t worry about who’s getting wet, fix the hole.”
Economist and Sapienta director Fiona Mullen concurred with Zenios that the economic impact of the current crisis will resonate with ‘74.
Like then, Mullen forecasts a three-year drop in GDP levels of around 15 per cent in the first two years, then a decrease of 5 per cent, taking Cyprus back to its levels at the turn of the millennium.
“There appears to be the same kind of shock to the psychology as well, in confidence, and to the normal functioning of the economy. What we don’t have now like we did in ‘74 is the big bounce back. One of the reasons was that we had to build a lot of houses in a hurry. This accelerated the shift from agriculture and light manufacturing to services.
“It came at a time when the Cyprus economy was already shifting from one model to another. Now, we got rid of one model and are not quite sure how to build another one,” she said.
“The only way to get something similar now is to start introducing some of the ideas going round for completely changing Cyprus’ growth model, introduce venture capital, make the most of solar panels instead of a quick buck from Russia.”
In terms of Cyprus making money out of its natural reserves, Mullen argued that Cyprus needed both Turkey and Israel’s cooperation.
Despite previously highlighting the savings that could be made by sending gas to Turkey via a pipeline, Mullen acknowledged that after the latest experience, “Cyprus will never want to be dependent on any big power again”.
To get Turkey on board, perhaps Cyprus could use its gas to produce and send electricity to the energy-hungry country, she said.
Nicosia now, a very different place from 1974 (NicosiaSkylines)
Refugee camp after the Turkish invasion