How Cyprus can call the EU's bluff.

As you are probably aware Cyprus is now in the middle of negotiations with EU leaders over a 17 billion euro bailout needed to save the country from bankruptcy. The original plan which involved the taxing of bank deposits at up to 10% has proved unworkable and has been voted down by the Cypriot parliament. However, there is another plan that would allow Nicosia to secure a loan and not have to implement painful spending cuts (and risk becoming the new Greece/Spain/Portugal) nor impose a bank levy that would annoy foreign depositors, especially the Russians.

When Cyprus achieved independence from Great Britain in 1960 large swathes of the island were handed over to the British armed forces to be used as bases in the strategically important eastern Mediterranean. The Sovereign Bases Area are still important given their proximity to Middle Eastern hot spots and the fact they lie so close to vital shipping routes through which so much of the world's oil comes via the Suez Canal.

So here is the deal. The Cypriot parliament turns down present Eurogroup proposals and instead announces that a) they are considering re-negotiating The Sovereign  Base Area deal with a view to inviting other nations to tender bids for a long term lease or b) they say that they will allow other nations to build naval facilities on the country's territory, thus giving them a similar deal . The cost in either case to be approximately the same as the money being used by EU to blackmail (the Cypriot PM's words, not mine) Nicosia into agreement.

Now this is where things get really interesting. Given the poor shape the Assad regime is in, Russia must be wondering if its naval base in Syria will survive a regime change and therefore an alternative offer would be welcome. That it comes from a country with such close ties with USA and UK makes the idea an even more delicious irony, given NATO's encroachment on countries close to the Russian border has been so unrelenting. The fact that huge volumes of natural gas may be flowing through this part of the world soon also adds to the attraction.

Even the suggestion of such an offer to the Russians will set alarm bells ringing in London, Washington and possibly Paris and combined these countries will be able to bring a huge amount of pressure to bear in Brussels and Berlin. Does the EU really want to change the balance of power in such a sensitive region for a paltry 7 billion euros? Given the geo-political ramifications and the fact that the European nations have already pumped 1.7 trillion euros into propping up the continent's ailing banking system, a few billion more may be considered a price worth paying.

In either case, Cyprus comes out on top, it doesn't have to tax depositors, large or small, it's banking sector comes out of hiding this week intact (more or less) and it gets the money it needs to avoid bankruptcy. 

Greek EFL/ESL in crisis

The school year has started once again here in Greece and once again I am getting back into the swing of things a far as teaching is concerned. I have started lessons with new students and as is often the case I have been appalled by what they have been put through in the name of EFL/ESL.

Case in point being a pair of teens who were forced to get through 10, yes 10 exam practice books as a way of preparing for their B2 level exams. No other material was provided and these poor guys had to wade through hundreds of pages of test items. No wonder they were wary about continuing their foreign language education with me. I quickly assured them they would not be doing anything as dry and soulless as this.

With the growth in number of ESOL examinations recognised by the Greek state the response of the the private language sector (where the bulk of language teaching takes place) is to turn intermediate level classes into little more than exam pratice lessons which do little more than repeat the format of whatever examinations are being taken. There is very little principled teaching of skills, functions, syntax, phonetics or anything else that might effectively help a person attain proficiency in English.

All that matters is that students do an endless list of exercises that may come up in the examinations they are going to take. Of course this scatter gun approach is time consuming, expensive and extremely ineffective. However, by the time that becomes apparent, the frontisteria (Greek private schools), publishing companies and exam providers have all made handsome profits out of hapless parents and robbed students of hundreds, if not thousands of hours of their youth.

Personally, this is a good thing, as cynical as it may seem as the latest generation of parents have come to realise the huge scam being committed and have started to look or alternative teaching opportunities and so come to me looking for something different. On the other hand schools have responded to this crisis by cutting cost and reducing the quality of the education offered even further. Low wages, chronic job insecurity and dubious contracts mean that teaching English in Greece has become a McJob where the youngest and cheapest are favoured and anyone with experience or qualifications are deemed a waste of money.