Cyprus: An ominous European debut

The massive Greek-Cypriot “no” to a UN plan leaves confusion on the island and headaches for Europe

THERE is a strange mood on Cyprus, considering that the country - or in practice, two-thirds of it - is in the process of realising a long-cherished goal, membership of the European Union. On an island where the usual atmosphere is one of absorption in private affairs, people listen attentively as public figures - Greek, Turkish and international - make wildly conflicting statements about the future.

Tassos Papadopoulos, the Greek-Cypriot president, blithely insisted on April 28th that UN efforts to reunite the island would continue - despite his own spectacularly successful effort to kill a UN blueprint to create a new, federal state: a proprosal presented by its main author, the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, as a last chance (at least for a very long time) for a negotiated end to the island's division.

“I have repeatedly said that the Annan plan and all similar plans are always going to be on the table. They do not die, they do not disappear,” declared the new standard-bearer of Hellenic defiance, who has struck a chord among nationalists in Greece as well as Greek Cyprus.

Is he right? Virtually nobody outside Cyprus would endorse the president's view that everything - or indeed anything much, in the realm of diplomacy - can go on as before, after the dramatic results of the vote among both Cypriot communities on April 24th. Egged on by Mr Papadopoulos, some 76% of the island's Greek majority delivered a resounding “no” to the settlement plan drafted by the UN secretary-general. As a result, the Greek-Cypriot administration exercised its right to join the Union alone on May 1st (along with nine other states) albeit under a cloud of resentment for turning down a deal which many outsiders, for better or worse, deemed a fair compromise.

The plan did involve risks, and concessions of long-held principle for the Greek side; but among the international bureaucrats (from the UN and EU) who had spent many months fine-tuning the draft, there was fury with Mr Papadopoulos for playing the rejection card so late in the day. “I would have to bite my tongue,” said Alvaro de Soto, the UN envoy to Cyprus, when asked how he felt.

Among the Turkish-Cypriots, who would have joined the Union as a part of a loose federation if the plan had won general approval, there was a 65% vote for the UN proposal. On the northern side of Nicosia, the island's divided capital, a sense of historic change was in the air on the night of the poll as people demonstrated outside the home of Rauf Denktash, the hardline president of the unrecognised Turkish-Cypriot state, urging him to resign.

Mr Denktash - who remained a rejectionist to the last - retorted that he would have stepped down if the blueprint had been accepted: he “thanked God” for the Greek “no”, which relieves the Turks of any immediate pressure to make land concessions or bring troops home. Sceptical Turkish-Cypriots had started quipping that Mr Denktash's last remaining friend was Boncuk, his pet terrier; but objectively, he has found a new one - Mr Papadopoulos, the new father of rejectionism.

Very logically from his point of view, the Turkish-Cypriot leader described the Greek thumbs-down as a vindication of his own scepticism about the viability of the Annan plan. “Now it is completely dead, I shan't even keep a copy, and I have ordered all files on the plan to be thrown into the cellars,” Mr Denktash said of the UN document. In practice, though, the old thunderer has lost power - to moderates who are keen to co-exist with like-minded Greeks, assuming they can find some.

But will they find any? It is a depressing sign of how far apart the island's two communities now seem that each held celebrations on referendum night - for opposing reasons. There was a mood of irrational euphoria among the “victors” on both sides. The Greek-Cypriots have avoided the risks involved in any plan that requires them to dissolve the internationally recognised (but in practice, Greek-only) Republic of Cyprus; and to share money and political power with their Turkish neighbours.

The Turkish-Cypriots, for their part, have won a moral victory by sloughing off their image as the main obstacle to the federal, demilitarised republic which both sides claim to accept in principle.

What will be the net result? Senior figures in the EU are disgruntled at having to reward the Greek-Cypriot nay-sayers with the benefits of membership while keeping the more co-operative Turkish-Cypriots at bay. Everybody - even including the Greeks and Greek-Cypriots, in theory - now accepts the need to share the benefits of EU membership with the Turkish-Cypriots. EU ambassadors agreed on April 28th to take urgent measures to end the economic isolation of northern Cyprus. It was decided that northern Cypriot goods could pass freely across the partition line - without the need to prove, as is now the case, that they are of purely local origin. Many EU members would like to open direct air links with northern Cyprus.

At the UN bureau in Nicosia, officials fed fistfuls of documents into the shredder as their “good offices” mission prepared to close. They voiced both disappointment and anger. Mr de Soto's team of experts had painstakingly put together a 9,000-page peace plan which would have enabled a reunified Cyprus to join the EU.

Is there any hope at all that efforts to reunite the island could restart? For many observers, the key lies with Demetris Christofias, leader of the Greek-Cypriot communist party - Akel - which governs in coalition with Mr Papadopoulos. Akel has historically taken a moderate line on the island's future, and Turkish doves were dismayed by its refusal to endorse the plan. While party leaders were willing to do so, many of its supporters were swayed by the emotional rhetoric of Mr Papadopoulos. Something similar happened in the island's centre-right camp, where the leader of the DISY party, Nicos Anastasiades, took a courageous “yes” stance but was clearly ignored by many of his supporters.

So will Greek-Cypriots want to reverse their decision by holding another referendum? It's up to them, say UN officials. But the prospects are by no means bright. Mr Christofias would have to lead the way - and he shows little inclination for a bust-up with Mr Papadopoulos, who has been generous with the spoils of power. Having played the nationalist card successfully, Mr Papadopoulos is riding high at home even as he is shunned abroad.

The massive Greek-Cypriot 'no' to the Annan Plan leaves confusion on the island and headaches for Europe.