Undrawing lines

Written by Andrew Duff MEP and published in Financial Times Online - www.ft.com on Fri 9th Apr 2004

The Mediterranean is littered with the debris of lost civilisations. Over the next fortnight the European Union has the chance to salvage another distinct culture from extinction, that of Turkish Cyprus. On 24 April two referenda will be held on the island on whether or not to accept the UN plan to create immediately a new United Cyprus Republic (UCR) that will join the EU on 1 May. Under UN auspices, and with the backing of the US, EU Commission and Council officials have been instrumental in brokering the deal. On 15 April the EU will take the lead in an international donors' conference convened to stack up the investment needed to develop the economy of Turkish North Cyprus, to finance the setting up of the new federal government, and to pay for the re-housing of the 60,000 or so Turkish Cypriots who are to be removed from land ceded to the Greeks. Now is the time for EU politicians to come out and campaign hard for a positive vote in both referenda. A No in either community will scupper the whole deal. The case for a double Yes is convincing - but it is an argument that has yet to be heard forthrightly on either side of the Green Line. In this small island, obsessed with its sad past, mired in parochial sectarianism and frightened of a pluralistic future, the voice of Europe now needs to be heard loud and clear.

The deal

The latest, and final, Annan Plan (which runs to 9000 pages) deals with all the issues with which we have become so familiar since Archbishop Makarios ruined the post-colonial constitution in 1963. Bizonality will be assured by the installation of a federal government representing the UCR in international and EU affairs but without the power to subordinate the two component parts. The national identities of Greek and Turkish Cypriots will be protected within the multi-ethnic context required by EU membership. The permanent presence of Greek and Turkish armed forces on the island, albeit in much reduced numbers, will deliver military security.

45,000 settlers from mainland Anatolia will be allowed to stay in the North. There will be derogations from the full application of the EU acquis communautaire in respect of the principles of freedom of movement and establishment for lengthy transitional periods. Greek migration to the North will be restricted to 18 per cent of the Turkish population for 19 years or until Turkey itself joins the EU. Liberalisation of the property market will remain restricted for 15 years or until the per capita income of the North reaches 85 per cent of the South. The boundary will be redrawn to reduce the Turkish territory to 28 per cent of the island's whole: the British will also cede some land to the Greeks from their large sovereign bases. The federal political system gives the Turkish minority special privileges. The UCR will not be a pure democracy, but it should be a manageable one as long as the good will to make it work exists.

To sugar the pill, the European Union should promise to add a Protocol to its own Constitution that expressly recognises the foundation treaty of the UCR. By so doing it would effectively replace the former guarantor powers of the UK, Greece and Turkey which proved so useless in protecting the 1960 constitution of the original Republic of Cyprus. The EU must also hurry to get its new Constitution into force so that the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg will be able to adjudicate the claims of rights of Cypriot refugees.

What if 'No'

So much rests on a successful outcome that if both sides say No, the credibility of both the UN and the EU will be badly damaged; instability in the Eastern Mediterranean will rise; there will be more support for the ultra-nationalist right in Turkey to counter the European vocation of the moderate Islamic government of Recep Tayip Erdogan. But the outcomes are rather different if only one side says Yes.

If it were the Turkish Cypriots who say No, Turkish membership of the EU would be put off indefinitely. It would be impossible for the most Turkophile of Europeans to argue that Turkey could join the Union while it continued not to recognise and even to threaten one of its member states. Graeco-Turkish relations in the Aegean and in the Balkans would take a turn for the worse. Turkish would not become an official language of the EU, and there would not be two Turkish Cypriot Members of the European Parliament. The trade embargo that imperils the exiting Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) would continue; poverty there would deepen; and 20,000 or so enterprising yet frustrated Turkish Cypriots would leave for London and elsewhere. In the event of a Turkish No, the likelihood is that the Turkish Cypriot civilisation would crumble away. We would remember it with the same poignancy as we recall the once rich cultures of Hellenic Smyrna or Turkish Crete.

What will happen if the Greek Cypriots say No? They will have lost their last chance to gain more land peacefully and to ensure a marked reduction in the size of the Turkish army on the island. All bets for reconciliation will be off. The EU will be bound to relax its trade embargo against the North, and there will be moves internationally to formally recognise the TRNC. The reception that President Papadopoulos can expect at meetings of the European Council will vary from chilly to frigid. The Greek Cypriots will have sacrificed the moral high ground they always claim to possess. A Greek Cypriot No will re-kindle suspicions about their readiness for EU membership.

Two weeks ahead of the referenda, the opinion polls give bad tidings, especially in the South. Tassos Papadopoulos and Rauf Denktash are united in maintaining their decades' long hatred for each other. Both would prefer their communities to languish in the arms of their respective motherland than to assume a modern European mentality. The European Union should get stuck into the Cypriot campaign on the side of their opponents without compunction.