Opinion
By Larkos Larkou
Is there any doubt that corruption is a major reason why the Cyprus problem remains unresolved? A recent example is the Vasiliko case, the construction project of the "Liquefied Natural Gas Storage and Regasification Terminal" in Vasiliko. The prosecution authorities ignored the Audit Service Report on Vasilikos, prompting the European Public Prosecutor General's Office (EPO) to take action. According to their findings, "the European Commission, as a result of the above claims, demands the reimbursement of €68,608,438.46, the European grant paid to date to ETYFA, the party to the contract. It should be noted that the project named 'Cyprus Gas 2 EU' is a project of common interest and was financed with a European grant of €101 million" (Politis, 28/7). The Ministry of Energy announced that it has received a letter from the European Commission noting possible irregularities in the construction and operation of the Vasilikos Terminal. The first concern is the criteria for awarding the tender to this consortium (December 2019) and the second concerns the signing of the bilateral agreement upon approval of the additional €25 million (June 2022).
Twenty years of EU membership, instead of working to solve the EU's shortcomings, the leadership excelled at other things: naturalization, royalty, and the Pandora Papers.
Today's Vasilikos, yesterday's golden passport case. Earlier, the excess profits from ''goodwill'' in land developments in critical geographical zones on the coastal island. In the "pro present state of affairs movement," there are, schematically, several categories:
Those who constitute the ''hardcore'', those of whom the invasion has provided high economic benefits or have acquired extremely high economic power in the process. This group of interests linked to immobility is the main sponsor/creator of the path to the other solution.
Key to the hardcore are some media owners who combine financial and political influence with a desire to control/influence the scene. They denounce any attempt to return to talks by daily deconstructing the climate or atmosphere. Unable to publicly state their true aims, they practice a pre-emptive policy to prevent talks from resuming. The quickest way to achieve this goal is to cultivate the belief that everyone is plotting our destruction and that no one is helping us, so we should hold up the Republic of Cyprus as our only shield, their noble supporter, and the archbishop.
Three major contradictions of this stance:
1) When Denktash was in power, a solution seemed very remote. When Talat was in power, it seemed possible. And when Akinci was in power, it was a matter of mass acceptance. This is why G. Lillikas, seeing M. Akinci's popularity among the Greek Cypriots, called for "measures" to damage his image in Greek Cypriot public opinion.
2) This contradiction is so glaring that they hide it deep in the basement. At Cyprus' most powerful moment, October 5, 2005, Cyprus refused to veto Turkey's opening of accession talks as an EU member state without any quid pro quo! The contradictions show the use of high-pitched rhetoric to ensure public opinion does not fully grasp their real aim. As Thucydides aptly put it: "And they changed the established meaning of words to suit their actions."
3) Twenty years of EU membership, instead of working to solve the EU's shortcomings, the leadership excelled at other things: naturalization, royalty, and the Pandora Papers.
Many people - and rightly so - are highly critical of the corruption phenomena and understand very well the real dimension of the confrontation between the Attorney General and the Auditor General. But as a rule, they believe that corruption is in the air, happening on its own. They do not associate corruption with non-resolution; they do not link corruption with the unchecked exercise of power, the omnipotence that breeds arrogance and unaccountability. They avoid seeing the picture of a president who spent most of his time on naturalizations while paying little attention to good preparation for meetings with M. Akinci. The record year in naturalizations was the year of the disintegration of the Cyprus negotiating landscape by the "baron" of golden passports, whose decisions are now being investigated by the European Prosecutor General's Office for the Vasilikos case.
[This opinion piece was translated from its Greek original]
