Sir,
The disgraceful treament of Cyprus bank customers by Germany and the European Central Bank, principally at the insistence of the German Finance Minsiter Wolfgang Schaeuble has broken both the spirit and letter of the guarantees given to all bank customers since the beginning of the crsis in 2008.
The move has also alienated bank customers throughout the Euro zone. But now Dimitry Medvedev the Russian Prime Minister has compared the European Union's actions to what used to happen under the old Soviet Communism. "This practice, unfortunately, was very well known and is familiar to many Russians from the Soviet period, when money was exchanged with coefficients and never returned. But Cyprus is a country with a market economy, a member of the European Union. The move "looks just like confiscation of people' money."
The ultimate humiliation for the abject failure of the European Union is this justified comparison with a former tyranny - by those who suffered from it.
Yours etc
Rodney Atkinson