Former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw: A divided Cyprus should never have been allowed into the EU
The Rt. Hon. Jack Straw has described Cypriot accession to the European Union as one of his “greatest regrets” from his time in office.
Writing in the Independent to mark the 50th anniversary of the Turkish intervention in Cyprus, the former Foreign Secretary, describes how the “legal nonsense” of the terms of Cyprus’ accession to the EU has handed Greek Cypriots “all the cards” when it comes to negotiations on the divided island.
He warns that if the Greek Cypriot side continues its refusal to negotiate in good faith “there is only one way to unblock the impasse.”
It will be for international partners, such as guarantor nations like the UK, and the EU to tell the southern Cypriots that “partition of the island will be on the table, and the enforced isolation of the north will end.”
He highlights that the current stalemate and lack of agreement is due to the intransigence of the Greek Cypriot community which has rejected every negotiated settlement, including the 2004 UN backed Annan proposals. A rejection that led to “outrage” among European ministers.
Mr Straw insists that the EU and its member states “should have postponed Cyprus’s accession and insisted that it would only go ahead once a power-sharing peace settlement for the whole island was in place.” He points to how “this, after all, was part of the original rationale for making Cyprus an accession state.”
Going further, he labels the current position of the EU an “absurdity”. Referring to a declaration from the recently re-elected EU Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen, that the EU would “never, ever” accept a two-state solution for the island.
He remarks that “there are plenty of examples, in Europe and beyond, where partitions are the least-worst solution to continuing conflicts.” He goes on to reiterate that “the possibility of partition is the one thing which could, and likely would, prompt the south to compromise, because if not, they would have an entirely separate, internationally recognised, independent state to their north.”
A situation that he acknowledges “is that de facto that’s what we have anyway.”
For him, it is time for change. Mr Straw questions why “innocent people in the north continue to be punished” with international isolation due to the “obduracy” of the Greek Cypriots.
In his mind, “the prize, of a settlement, would have many advantages for the long-term future of the south as well as the north, and should now actively be pursued.”
