LONDON, 22 December 2004 — For three long, fruitless decades, Cyprus has been a hook on the door that leads to Europe, a peg on the periphery of our concerns. But now, suddenly, ecstatic crowds greet Turkey’s prime minister as he returns to Istanbul from two tough days in Brussels — and Europe itself hangs from that hook.
What almost wrecked the celebration of Turkey’s EU negotiation, leaving Blair, Schroeder and Chirac looking pretty silly? Cyprus. What rickety compromise cooked up thereafter could collapse at any point over the next 10 years, leaving a trail of bitterness behind it? Same answer. Forms of words won’t serve here. Only solutions matter.
But surely, you say, there was a solution last spring, one painstakingly brokered by the UN, with Brussels and British Foreign Office envoys standing by. It turned a divided island into a loose federal state. It brought down the walls that carve Nicosia in two. Ankara leaned on its familiar awkward squad — the Turkish Army and blustering old Rauf Denktash — and campaigned for a yes vote. Yes to a better future; yes to a reunited Cyprus joining the EU as one; yes to smoother Turkish entry. And what happened? Turkish Cyprus voted for a fresh beginning. Greek Cyprus, amid ill-disguised European fury, didn’t. Either (depending which diplomat you talk to) the Greeks conned the rest of us, promising to deliver a bargain they never intended to honor — or else the final deal was always going to be rejected by Greek Cypriot public opinion and the politicians could do nothing about it. At any rate, Greek Cyprus, an Exocet of a veto never far away, is inside the union now and would seem to have Turkey where it wants it: On the outside, a barely welcome visitor required to make concessions whenever the Greeks see a chance to squeeze. Thus their problem becomes our problem. Thus the hook impales us all.
Of course, you can have doubts about the whole idea of Turkish entry. Of course — like the French and German parliamentarians I heard at a Lisbon seminar the other day — you can lament the fate of that ever closer union between the founding states and see Turkey’s coming (not to mention a wretchedly Anglo-Saxon constitutional treaty) as a stake driven through its heart. Of course — like the auxiliary bishop of Lisbon, holding forth from the same platform — the union is a Christian alliance that tells Muslims to knock-knock elsewhere.
But too much can be made of such accumulated doubts and sorrows. The union of 25 needs Turkey for its youth, zeal and commitment to development, a tiger in our tank. Europe inside the gates has many millions of Muslims anyway and, for the most part, embraces the contribution and the mix. If Ankara is an economic problem 10 or 12 years down the line, try Bucharest and Sofia in only three or four years.
All these considerations, though, stand separate from the Cyprus problem. Joining Europe can be and should be a resolution of that interminable crisis, but solving Cyprus has nothing to do with Turkey in Europe. So, how do we move on?
Most of the answers are there in a new Cypriot opinion research study by Alexandros Lordos. Briefly, the UN plan was never a runner with Greek opinion — at least as reflected here. Maybe it wasn’t sold hard enough, but in any case the buyers had shut their minds. They didn’t like, but didn’t ultimately reject, a federal compromise. They’d probably buy it again if a revised deal came back for a vote. But they were fatally twitchy about their security, about Turkish troops on the island far into the distance, about the strength of international guarantees. And — less thoughtfully — they just wanted more: More Turkish restitution money for those who suffered in the invasion, more homes returned in the north. Plus, on the nether side of the “more”, less of a Turkish mainland settler presence. Send them back to Anatolia and make sure they can’t come back later claiming Cyprus residency because they’ve become EU citizens.
Lordos is moderately heartened by these results. No fundamental blocks, nothing a few concessions from Ankara can’t fix. But Europe in general may be rather less sanguine. Here’s a critical decision for 25, maybe 28, countries, a momentous reaching out to democratic Islam — and 600,000 Greek Cypriots, too slow to see the big picture, seem ready to stall it for a few thousand homes in Famagusta and a few million extra compensation. Fundamental mismatch. The coming years can’t all be about muscling further concessions out of Ankara. They have to put pressure to shift minds on the Greek side as well.
That will not be easy. Membership throws a protective arm around Nicosia. Should Ankara, in time, offer extra cash and rights of return? Those are cards it could play as entry negotiation gets under way. But should it be shipping more thousands of peasants back to Anatolia as the Greeks demand (even if they are young people born and bred in Cyprus)? That’s too much like a soft-focus version of ethnic cleansing. It is also a total denial of the economic integration that’s the point of Turkey joining the EU in the first place — a guarantee of peace, long after mainland troops from Turkey or Greece have left.
So, a stark equation. Does Greek Cyprus deserve justice at last? Yes, absolutely; an island made whole. But, outside the time capsule of frustration, are there other dimensions that move the greater Europe they themselves have chosen to join forward? Absolutely, a duty as well as a bargain. This is our hook on our door. It’s time to push that door wide.
