--- title: Could Cyprus Bring Down the European Economy? TIME Explains | TIME description: Tiny Cyprus and its debt crisis show how much Europe still needs a more perfect union canonical: https://time.com/video/QClqCZUy/ og:title: Could Cyprus Bring Down the European Economy? TIME Explains og:description: Tiny Cyprus and its debt crisis show how much Europe still needs a more perfect union og:url: https://time.com/video/QClqCZUy/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/QClqCZUy/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Could Cyprus Bring Down the European Economy? TIME Explains twitter:description: Tiny Cyprus and its debt crisis show how much Europe still needs a more perfect union twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/QClqCZUy/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Could Cyprus Bring Down the European Economy? TIME Explains > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Could Cyprus Bring Down the European Economy? TIME Explains [Watch (HLS stream): Could Cyprus Bring Down the European Economy? TIME Explains](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QClqCZUy.m3u8) (2:19)  _Published 2013-03-21. Tiny Cyprus and its debt crisis show how much Europe still needs a more perfect union_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:31 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [A British Woman Has Received a Suspended Sentence in a High Profile Cyprus Rape Case](/video/QaVxILJ8/) ### A British Woman Has Received a Suspended Sentence in a High Profile Cyprus Rape Case [Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Could Hit U.S. Mutual Funds](/video/vVmWgZu1/) ### Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Could Hit U.S. Mutual Funds [TIME Explains: Cyprus and The Eurozone Bank Bailout](/video/IDHU38NC/) ### TIME Explains: Cyprus and The Eurozone Bank Bailout --- ## Transcript Will tiny Cyprus be the country that brings down the European Union, here is what you need to know. [ MUSIC ]. Cyprus has an economy about the size of Vermont. It is a tiny part of the European Union, it's 0. 2 % of the entire Euro zone GDP, but it's possible that tiny Cyprus could be the economic equivalent of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that sparked World War I, a tiny incident that causes a major European, potentially global catastrophe. The problem started with a faulty debt deal We've known for months now that Cyprus was going to need a bailout of about 17 billion dollars because it has the typically bad finances of a southern european country. A few days ago, the european officials that are currently running things in the Eurozone, the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the IMF came together and said that they would give them 10 billion dollars but they had to go and find the rest of the money themselves. Well they decided to go to ordinary depositers in the country. The idea was to get some of the off shore money being parked by Russians and make those depositers responsible with coming up with some of the money to avoid default, but the problem is that the inital proposal put forward by authorities would have also made depositors who has less then one thousand euros, so average mom and pop. [ MUSIC ] Depositors in Cyprus responsible for helping to bail out the country. [ SOUND ] This caused a public outrage. And banks had to be shut for fear of a bank run not only in Cyprus but throughout Southern Europe. The current Cypriot government was voted in on the promise of protecting deposits. The European Union has said that there should be common deposit insurance throughout Europe similar to what the US has with the FDIC. That hasn't happened yet because Europe is having trouble coming closer together and developing a banking union. That won't happen overnight. 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