Member News
By Lord Harrison - 9th November 2011
The honour of Cyprus assuming the E.U presidency may only lead to "further internal strife" between the two sides of the island, Lord Harrison argues.
On 1st July 2012, Cyprus assumes the presidency of the European Union for a period of six months.
On 1st January, Cyprus becomes a member of the Trio of EU Nations overseeing the fortunes of the EU. The Trio is composed of the incoming, present and outgoing presidencies of the EU.
It is the first time that Cyprus will perform this important role and it confers a great honour on the country so chosen to 'lead' the EU for the six to 18 months. The presidency not only hosts all significant Council meetings on the island but will act as the Secretariat for the meetings.
All the more's the pity then that the two sides of the Island of Cyprus – the Northern Cypriots, principally Turkish and Southern Cyprus, predominantly Greek Cypriots – will not be sharing this significant responsibility. This is a consequence of the European Union permitting Cyprus to join the European Union before the two parts of the Island had been reconciled.
The injustice to the Northern Cypriots is intensified by the fact that they had voted in favour of the Annan Plan which would indeed have resolved the decades-old dispute and would have allowed the two parts of the island to have joined the EU as a United Cyprus.
My question to Foreign Office minister Lord (David) Howells of Guildford on Wednesday 9th November is designed to stir the UK government to redouble efforts, as the principal guarantor nation, to encourage both sides to find a solution, or at the very least a modus vivendi of working together to perform this significant task.
If no such solution is found (and UN Chief Ban Ki Moon has called for a resolution of the New York Talks which have extended over two fruitless years), then the very moment that all the people of Cyprus should be celebrating the apogee of their arrival in the EU will turn, instead, into a cause for further internal strife.
Inspired political leadership is required on all sides. And the United Kingdom is in a pre-eminent position to encourage such leadership.
Lyndon Harrison was raised to the peerage in 1999.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd