Cyprus must raise $7.2b by Monday to avert crisis Desperation: Bank employees protest against the bailout measures. European leaders warn the problems will quickly spread throughout the eurozone if Cypriot banks fail. BERLIN: Cyprus must find €5.8 billion ($7.2 billion) to bolster its failing banks by Monday or watch them collapse. The European Central Bank's announcement that it would withdraw emergency funding from the Cypriot banks if no bailout was in place gave urgency to the country's scramble to find cash. European leaders warned in the strongest terms yet that problems would quickly spread throughout the eurozone if Cypriot banks failed. Cyprus is "definitely a systemic risk, and the unrest of the last couple of days have proved that, unfortunately," said Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the caucus of countries that share the euro, in the European Parliament on Thursday. Cyprus' banks have been closed all week in an attempt to prevent a bank run, after MPs rejected on Tuesday an unprecedented effort to raise bailout funds by seizing a portion of all bank deposits. Cyprus has turned to Russia for money, and Cyprus state television has reported that other possibilities include seizing a portion of all deposits above €100,000, nationalising private pension funds and restructuring the troubled banking sector. In the streets the mood turned increasingly dark. Two hundred demonstrators gathered outside parliament and riot police clashed with protesters. On Thursday, people throughout the country flocked to cash machines in even greater numbers than in recent days to withdraw as much money as possible. With anger growing, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades presented parliament with a plan that scrapped a controversial tax on bank deposits. Experts warned, however, that the deposit-tax plan might yet need to be revisited unless the government found a way through other means to reach the target of €5.8 billion needed to satisfy international negotiators. Deposits in Cyprus's banks were seven times the size of its economy at the end of last year, an unusual situation fostered by low taxes and a reputation for lax regulation. Many European policymakers suspect it is a hub for Russian money laundering. Cypriot banks hold €70 billion in deposits, of which €38 billion is in the form of deposits over €100,000, analysts estimate. Finance Minister Michalis Sarris has been in Moscow since late Tuesday to try to obtain emergency funding from Russian leaders, who have been apoplectic about the possibility that Russian bank deposits in Cyprus would take a hit. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday the initial bailout proposals to raise money with a one-time tax on all deposits "are of an expropriator, confiscator nature," Interfax reported. "I cannot compare it to anything but some decisions made at a certain period of time by the Soviet authorities, who did not care much about people's savings," Mr Medvedev said. Cypriot Energy Minister Georgios Lakkotrypis was also in Moscow, fuelling speculation that Cyprus was offering access to its natural gas resources as a sweetener to any deal. On Wednesday, Cyprus's Orthodox Church offered to mortgage all its substantial assets to raise funds towards the bailout. Washington Post, New York Times