My understanding of this article is that the EU told him he would have to come up with ~5bn, which they wanted him to do by imposing a tax on large deposits ove

My understanding of this article is that the EU told him he would have to come up with ~5bn, which they wanted him to do by imposing a tax on large deposits over 100,000. The comment by Schaeuble is pretty clear in this regard. Instead, the president opted to impose an additional tax on lower deposits in order to decrease the burden on large ones and keep Cyprus attractive as a tax haven. The EU wasn't happy with this but let him do it since it still fulfilled the requirements of raising 5bn. So yes, the EU demanded that SOME customers have to pay SOME levy and I am sure he "shared people's unhappiness" with those terms. But the one who decided to put the burden on the small deposit holders was the Cypriot government.