Roundup: Thousands in protest against ECB Governing Council meeting in Cyprus

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's efforts to fulfill its commitments under its bailout program.

Government officials said President Nicos Anastasiades discussed Cyprus's 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.

Cyprus is not currently eligible for sovereign debt purchase as the troika - the collective name of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - discontinued its review of progress in applying an economic adjustment program under a 10-billion-euro bailout in March 2013.

The troika has made the conclusion of its review conditional on the enforcement of legislation, which has been suspended by parliamentary opposition parties as they become increasing hostile to more austerity measures.

Government sources said Anastasiades told Draghi that he hoped the government would be able to complete the repossessions legislation within the coming days and looked forward to a positive review by mid-April.

Anastasiades told European Central Bankers in a dinner address that Cyprus looked forward to participating in Draghi's program.

He said his government is anxious to finance its economy and push it into growth as of this year, following 14 consecutive quarters of recession.

He added that recession in 2014 was only 2.3 percent against an initial projection of 4.8 percent.

Draghi acknowledged that the Cypriot economy has performed much better since it entered its bailout program two years ago and would be able to exit its bailout program much earlier than the original projection of 2016. Endit