Eurogroup President praises “impressive recovery”

Ireland’s Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe praised Cyprus’ “impressive recovery” from the coronavirus outbreak, saying it was down to good national policies coupled with EU decisions.

In his first visit since the pandemic, Donohoe met Minister of Finance Constantinos Petrides, who stated that by early 2022 Cyprus could recover most if not all of the ground lost during the pandemic.

In a joint press conference, Donohoe and Petrides highlighted the importance of Ireland and Cyprus’ membership of the EU and the euro area.

“The performance of the Cypriot economy its recovery is so impressive, it has been led by a combination of the right national economic decisions and the right decisions at a European level.

“I believe the mixture of these decisions will allow the people of Cyprus to continue to recover from the effects of this disease,” Donohoe.

According to European Commission projections, Cyprus is set to post a growth rate of just over 4% this year and just below 4% in 2022.

“That is a really strong economic performance in the context of how difficult this disease has been, and it is a particularly strong performance given how Cyprus, like many other countries in Europe, places great value on tourism for employment and also for economic growth.”

The Irish Finance Minister also praised the expertise reflected in the Cyprus Recovery and Resilience Plan that will be discussed in the ECOFIN meeting next Monday.

He said the Cypriot plan “has already been warmly received by members of the EU and is already seen to be a really strong plan that will help Cyprus recover from this terrible, terrible disease.”

Donohoe encouraged reforms and changes as the EU is set to “begin the journey back to sensible economic decisions and to lower levels of borrowing”.

“We are all borrowing to support our economies at the moment because we have to because we need to, and we all will at the right point begin the journey as to how we reduce our borrowing and to go back to more normal economic policies.”

Petrides said that following a downturn of 5.1% in 2020, which was the lowest recession among other EU members with sizeable tourism sectors, the EU Commission projects 4.3% growth for 2021.

“So, we believe that by the beginning of 2022, we would have covered most, if not all, of the lost ground due to the pandemic.”