EU awaits peace talks for signs of progress on Cyprus

Date: 26/06/1997

GIVEN all the talk about EU enlargement to central and eastern Europe, you might think that Cyprus no longer had an application on the table.

Yet the small Mediterranean island's bid to join the world's largest trading bloc is still very much alive, as Nicosia diplomats are keen to stress.

“We are steadily preparing for membership,” insists Michalis Attalidis, Cyprus' ambassador to the Union.

Nevertheless, continued political tensions are casting a pall over the procedure and threaten to delay Cypriot accession. That is why all EU eyes will be on next month's peace talks in New York for signs of progress.

Although the European Commission does not draw a direct link between solving the Cyprus 'problem' and accession to the Union, it seems clear that premature membership without the support of the island's Turkish community (and, by implication, Ankara) could destabilise an already strained situation.

If it were not for that, there would be little to stop Cyprus becoming a member of the EU tomorrow and joining the single currency zone into the bargain.

The country's official per capita income was over 11,000 ecu in 1995, its economy is still growing faster than most of those in the EU and employment is close to full. It is also well into the procedures for aligning its laws with the Union acquis. As a result, the Commission judged in June 1993 that Cyprus' geography, economy and culture conferred on the island “beyond all doubt, its European identity and character,” and confirmed “its vocation to belong to the Community”.

Successive European summits added the by-now famous formula that Cyprus should begin accession talks six months after the end of the Intergovernmental Conference, which later became the milestone for all EU applicants.

The trouble is that Cyprus remains one of Europe's most sensitive flashpoints, in many ways the ultimate symbol of the millennium-old Christian-Muslim divide. Despite more than 20 years of international diplomacy, the disputes surrounding sovereignty over the island and its defence are as bitter as ever.

Ankara continues to warn that it will not tolerate Cyprus joining the Union without the full involvement of the island's Turkish community along with its own parallel accession.

In support of these claims, it recently elicited a legal opinion from British lawyer Maurice Mendelson suggesting that Cyprus' accession to an organisation of which Turkey was not a member would be incompatible with the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, signed by the UK, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus when the island gained independence.

Although this latest move is unlikely to sway the Commission or the EU as a whole, which do not interpret the treaty as preventing Cypriot membership of an international organisation, continued threats from Turkey that it will veto NATO expansion over the issue are hard to ignore.

The Commission insists “Cyprus' accession cannot be held hostage by another country”, but it is notable that EU foreign ministers recently decided to allow Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash a role in the process.

Whether the New York talks in early July will help is unclear. On the table are some bold efforts to create a federal state, enshrining differences between the two communities but dismantling economic and infrastructural barriers. The trouble is that both sides still hold positions that make compromise unlikely.

Denktash argues that he will only accept a deal which gives Turkish Cypriots 50-50 parity in government, which Nicosia cannot accept. And his continued demands for independence and refusal to address the problem of Greek refugees are impeding progress.

The official Cypriot government has proved equally intransigent about, for example, the status of Turkish settlers, whom it refuses to recognise as Cypriot citizens.

In New York, the two sides will talk under the chairmanship of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. But although finding a solution to the conflict is one of Annan's major objectives, few people expect a breakthrough.

That, in itself, would be no surprise. Yet failure to reach any agreement could look bad as the Commission releases its 'Agenda 2000' communication on its expansion plans. That is why Nicosia is anxious to play down the talks' significance for enlargement. “It is very counter-productive to link a solution to the Cyprus problem to accession,” warns Attalidis.