Cyprus won't ask eurozone for more money

Cyprus will not ask eurozone partners for more money as it battles to plug a six-billion-euro hole in its bailout package, during talks among the bloc's finance ministers in Dublin. Nicosia wants "no extra money," a Cypriot official told AFP, but was instead seeking help from a European Commission task force to lessen the burden of measures agreed in exchange for loans. Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades said on Friday he was appealing to EU chiefs for extra assistance having already spoken to European Union Economy and Euro Commissioner Olli Rehn. Anastasiades said he was writing to European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso and to EU President Herman Van Rompuy and would "refer to the need for EU policy to change towards Cyprus by giving it extra assistance, given the critical times we are going through as a result of the economic crisis and the measures imposed on us." He did not elaborate on what additional support he was seeking, but officials from Cyprus and the EU at the talks in Dublin said this would revolve around routine EU grants schemed in for member states over years to come. Under the preliminary bailout terms agreed with international creditors last month, Cyprus was already drastically downsizing its once lucrative banking sector, raising taxes, reducing the public sector workforce and privatising state-owned utilities to raise 7.0 billion euros. But according to one negotiator, "Cyprus's financial needs have grown in a deeper recession than anticipated." The government acknowledged on Thursday that the costs have now soared to 23 billion euros ($30 billion) and that the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are demanding that Cyprus fund the 6.0 billion euro shortfall too.