Next year Southern Cyprus is due to assume the rotating presidency of the EU yet Ankara has warned Brussels that if a divided Cyprus is allowed to take on the EU presidency as scheduled in July 2012 then its relationship with the European Union will "freeze". So if Europe is not careful it will not only have another eurozone member needing financial rescue but have a partner in political turmoil while trying to run the presidency. So reports the Guardian in their Cif piece authored by Charlie Charalambous, but this article does not hint at the problems with reunification to which I referred here and about which little is heard in the MSM, or even from the EU. It is also noticable that the EU, when mentioning the island of Cyprus, refers to that island as an entire country, the word Southern being omitted.
With the governments of Greece and Ireland having been 'taken over' by the EU it is quite ironic that following Cyprus, according to the rotational schedule for the presidency, we have Ireland, Lithuania and then Greece. Cyprus even has a preliminary website of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the EU in which it states that Cyprus aspires to rise to the expectations that the role entails and also to influence and assist substantially in furthering EU ideals and enhancing the profile of the Union internationally.
If, as it looks, that Southern Cyprus might be going the way of Greece, Ireland and Portugal and does require a bail-out, with similar 'conditions' imposed by Brussels, no doubt they will then have no problems in furthering and enhancing the EU's ideals and profile.
2 comments:
I do hope northern Cyprus remains as it is, safely outside the toxic Eurozone. It is a quite lovely part of the island and reunification with the Greek side will ruin it forever.
DD99: Totally agree with you - I have only been once but intend returning this year (hopefully)
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