The European Union attempted to force Cyprus to tax bank depositors as a precondition for the small country to receive financial aid from the Union. While most of American main street media paid no attention to the crisis, many financial news services looked at the situation carefully as people in Cyprus went to the ATMs to withdraw money before the supposed bank deposit tax passed in Cyprus' parliament.

If the first paragraph did not make this clear, let me simplify the situation. A transnational institution is forcing Cyprus to take a percentage of all bank deposited money (i.e. savings and checking accounts) to be used as a fee for the European Union to give financial aid to a financially instable Cyprus.

Thanks to the EU's proposal, a bank run was triggered, which further threatened to destabilize Cyprus' situation. Virtually all people of Cyprus' is against the proposal. Actually, they probably feel betrayed by the EU's false promises on actually helping the lagging Euro-zone member.

The parliament of Cyprus defeated the proposal as the finance minister of Cyprus pleaded with the European Union to give a more reasonable condition for financial aid. Unfortunately, it's not likely that the European Union would provide a more sympathetic tone as Germany's Angela Merkel is facing an election this year. German domestic politics is preventing the EU from giving a more humane and reasonable financial aid deal to Cyprus. Reuters reports that Berlin has instructed its finance minister not to yield on taxing the bank depositors.

It's not surprising to think that the European Union leaders did not expect such a negative reaction from Cyprus, so I am truly convinced that the European Union was never serious in providing meaningful aid to Cyprus in the first place. The fact that the German government is unwilling to give aid unless the bank deposit tax is in place means that no real option was given to Cyprus. It is simply the European Union telling Cyprus to fend for itself.

I am hopefully predicting that another country outside the European Union would bail out Cyprus. I am also quite certain that more people will question the European Union's ability to fix the Euro-zone's crisis.