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2nd LD Writethru: Cypriot parliament approves legislation putting bail-out program back on track

Xinhua, April 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Cyprus's Parliament approved a crucial legislation on Saturday hopefully putting back on track its bail-out program after a suspension of almost 7 months.

The legislation setting out the framework for insolvency, which was demanded by international lenders, was passed at an extraordinary weekend session of the 56-seat parliament.

The legislation still needs to be officially endorsed by the Eurogroup and the International Monetary Fund.

Lawmakers passed by a 33 to 23 majority several laws which are intended to compliment the repossessions legislation and provide protection to small loan takers by banning repossession of their primary residence or small business premises by banks.

Lack of the repossessions and insolvency legislation had led the Eurogroup and the IMF in October 2014, to suspend further financial assistance to Cyprus under a 10-billion-euro(10.8 billion U.S. dollars) bailout deal concluded in March 2013.

The Eurogroup canceled a fifth evaluation of Cyprus's progress in applying its adjustment program and the IMF suspended a 86-million-euro tranche of economic assistance.

Center and right-wing lawmakers reached a last-minute deal with a small socialist party to secure the passage of the legislation.

Left-wing AKEL party which opposes to the bail-out austerity program though it had been instrumental in negotiating the bailout memorandum when in government from 2008 to 2013, unsuccessfully tried to scuttle the legislation by invoking procedural rules.

The Cypriot government said in a statement by its spokesman that the legislation can prove a milestone for Cyprus to get out of its bailout program and obtain financing its operations from international markets.

Cyprus was shut out of international markets since mid-2011, and was finally forced to seek bailout by its Eurogroup partners in June 2012.(1 euro = 1.08 U.S. dollars) Endit