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1st LD Writethru: Thousands in protest against ECB Governing Council meeting in Cyprus

Xinhua, March 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Several thousand people gathered outside the venue of a meeting of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Cyprus on Wednesday to protest austerity policies imposed by international lenders.

Police estimated the crowd of trade unionists and other protest groups at over three thousand. They said that Cypriot protesters were joined by groups from Greece, Portugal, Austria, Serbia, Italy and France.

But organizers, who came from 20 trade unions and groups and had the support of Cypriot opposition parties, said they had expected many more thousands to join the protest rally.

The protesters carried banners reading "Society Reacts and Demands" and chanted slogans such as "No more austerity and cuts" and "No to troika and its policies," as teams of ECB technocrats held a preparatory meeting for an important Governing Council session on Thursday.

Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) sources said that after Thursday's meeting ECB president, Mario Draghi, will announce at a press conference details on his 1.1-trillion-euro quantitative easing program aimed at injecting fresh money into the lagging economies of euro zone countries and ECB's interest policies.

They said they expected Draghi to announce the start as early as next week of the purchase of sovereign debt by ECB in a bit to combat persisting deflation and high unemployment, now standing at about 11 percent in the euro zone area.

The ECB Governing Council session will also discuss the issue of Greece and the funding of the country's banks which depend solely on ECB Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) to meet the outflow of capital.

Draghi was reported as telling the preparatory meeting that he believed the next four months will be very crucial for Greece' efforts to fulfill its commitments under its bailout program.

Government officials said President Nicos Anastasiades discussed Cyprus' economic adjustment program and the eastern Mediterranean island's participation in the quantitative easing program at a private meeting with Mario Draghi ahead of a dinner he hosted for European Central Bankers. Endit