All Under the Moon...

 A few blog entries ago I spoke about Greece and how her woes always seem to run parallel with our own. It can't be any clearer now that this is true as we too are now asking Europe for money. The government assures its citizens that things will not be as bad  for us as our neighbours. On the other hand there is the hope that China or Russia will give us money. Where will that stand us? It all sounds a little too dubious to me.

This shadow is cast over our heads as we begin the presidency of the EU. Embarrassingly we are the first country to go down in history as assuming presidency and at the same time applying for bailout. How did we come to this? It's no secret that we couldn't have predicted things to go so disastrously wrong five years ago with a relatively strong economy. Okay our banks relied a lot on Greece but I can't help thinking that this is only part of the problem, the other part is internal. Internal politics and manouvres and cash funnelling out of the state coffers. One thing's for sure that presidential jet has made a lot of trips recently and our president's belly looks as round as ever.

The ceremony held on Thursday to officially begin our presidency was at Curium Amphitheatre near Limassol. It tried to remind us of all that is great about this island, what we can be proud of and what we can offer Europe during our six month stint. There was melodic classical music which I can only imagine sounded beautiful against the sea breeze. There were traditional folkloric songs and dancers and a spine tingling rendition of Mikis Theodorakis' song dedicated to the island. Together with the speeches it covered a one and a half hour performance. In the crowd I caught a glimpse of a guest checking his i-phone, another snoozing away and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso looking a bit uncomfortable sitting on the stony seats of the Curium Amphitheatre.

So, Cyprus takes on the responsibility of EU presidency and a bailout and anything else that is thrown at us, with an opening ceremony under a red auspicious moon. If it is indeed auspicious, it remains to be proven.