Pavlos Xanthoulis
Turkey is attempting to turn European involvement in the Cyprus issue into a boomerang by directing it exclusively towards ending what it describes as the “isolation” of the Turkish Cypriot community.
Ankara’s objective is twofold: to neutralize any substantive EU role in the settlement process, which Nicosia wants in order to ensure that a solution complies with the European acquis, and to redirect Brussels’ involvement towards the proposed direct trade regulation, which has remained frozen since 2004.
Such a move, in the author’s view, would lay the foundations for the “Taiwanisation” of the occupied areas and the gradual de facto recognition of the breakaway entity.
Turkey has conveyed these positions at the highest levels in Brussels, citing the conclusions adopted by the EU in April 2004, when the Council declared its determination to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community.
Fitto, the Commission’s envoy on the Cyprus issue, is fully aware of Ankara’s demands. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has also been informed.
The renewed effort by the Erdoğan government is linked to outgoing UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ decision to make agreement on a negotiating “methodology” a prerequisite for convening the multilateral conference he has announced.
Diplomatic circles interpret this as a new UN condition covering both an update of past convergences and Ankara’s demand for guarantees over what happens to the Turkish Cypriot community if another round of talks ends in failure.
This is one of the four points included in the procedural methodology advanced by Erhürman and supported by Turkey. It seeks assurances from the United Nations and the international community that, in the event of another deadlock, the Turkish Cypriot side will not remain trapped in the status quo and that its “isolation will be lifted.”
Ankara puts the “Three Alphas” on the table
Turkey has presented the EU and Fitto with its full list of demands: direct trade, direct relations with the international community, and direct flights from the airports operating in the occupied areas.
In Greek, the three demands are known as the “Three Alphas,” because each begins with the same letter: 'apefthías empório'—direct trade; 'apefthías schéseis'—direct relations; and 'apefthías ptíseis'—direct flights.
According to reports, UN envoy María Ángela Holguín has urged President Nikos Christodoulides to agree to these demands as a means of bringing the Turkish Cypriot side back to the negotiating table.
She is also said to have told the president that he “knows what he needs to do,” signalling an expectation that the Greek Cypriot side make an additional gesture.
Nicosia, however, considers such a move impossible to accept. Its concern is that granting these concessions before negotiations even begin would entrench the breakaway entity in practice and transform what is presented as an incentive for a solution into the solution itself.
Guterres left the issue of methodology deliberately open, using what diplomatic sources describe as constructive ambiguity. He referred to the need for the two sides to discuss methodology alongside confidence-building measures and the substance and basis of a settlement.
The Turkish Cypriot side, however, treats the methodology as part of Guterres’ political legacy and therefore as something that should bind the UN leadership that succeeds him.
Former Turkish Cypriot negotiator Özdil Nami has underlined the importance of the four-point methodology, arguing that the way negotiations are conducted may prove just as important as their substance.
The methodology raises three central questions: whether talks should operate within a fixed timetable, whether a mechanism should be created to break future deadlocks, and whether the communities should be offered substantive choices instead of merely being asked to approve or reject an entire settlement package.
Turkish Cypriot information campaign planned
Erhürman is expected to launch an international information campaign after the summer promoting the lifting of the Turkish Cypriot community’s “isolation,” working alongside the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
During his contacts with Fitto, he reportedly made clear that the EU would not be accepted as a participant in consultations over a Cyprus settlement. Instead, he argued, the most useful contribution Brussels could make would be to end Turkish Cypriot isolation.
He also called for pressure on the Greek Cypriot side over citizenship applications concerning children born from marriages between Turkish Cypriots and Turkish settlers.
In addition, according to EU sources, Erhürman asked Fitto to intervene so that “obstacles raised by the Greek Cypriot administration” to trade across the Green Line are removed.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry is similarly seeking to restrict the EU’s role to matters concerning isolation and the development of what it calls “good-neighbourly relations between two sovereign entities living side by side.”
Ankara believes that the EU must eventually deliver on what it regards as promises made in the April 2004 Council conclusions, as well as through the draft direct trade regulation that remains frozen in the European Parliament.
The Commission’s “sinful past” encourages Ankara today
Turkey’s current strategy draws strength from decisions taken in Brussels more than two decades ago.
Following Cyprus’ accession to the EU in 2004—and the Greek Cypriot community’s rejection of the Annan Plan in separate referendums—the European Commission proposed allowing direct trade between the occupied north and the European Union.
The proposal would have created an autonomous trading relationship between the EU and the “TRNC,” effectively legitimizing commerce through ports operating in the occupied areas and, in the author’s assessment, turning the north into a “Taiwan of the Mediterranean.”
The most controversial element was the legal basis chosen by the Commission. It relied on Article 133 of the European treaties—now Article 207—which governs trade with third countries.
That approach would effectively have treated the “TRNC” as a separate third country. It would also have allowed the regulation to be approved by a qualified majority, bypassing Cyprus’ right of veto.
The proposal was promoted by then-European Commissioner Günter Verheugen, with Britain also playing an active role. Turkey supported it, as did several EU member states, including Germany and the United Kingdom.
At Nicosia’s request, however, the Council’s Legal Service examined the matter and concluded that the correct legal basis was Protocol No. 10 of Cyprus’ Accession Treaty. That would have required unanimous approval from all member states, giving the Republic of Cyprus the power to block the proposal.
The Council’s lawyers also rejected the idea that the “TRNC” could be treated as a third country.
Despite this, the Commission continued to pursue the regulation and forwarded it to the European Parliament—a development that caught the Cypriot government and diplomatic service off guard.
Former president Demetris Christofias described the Commission’s move as a “foul.”
The issue triggered an intense confrontation in the European Parliament in October 2010. Ioannis Kasoulides, then a vice-president of the European People’s Party and a member of DISY, played a decisive role in blocking the regulation.
Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs ultimately rejected the proposal after the institution’s own Legal Service agreed with the Council that the Commission had selected the wrong legal basis.
Yet the issue was never formally brought to an end.
Then-European Parliament president Martin Schulz should have returned the rejected proposal to the Commission. Instead, it remained frozen in Parliament, keeping it technically alive.
That decision gave the regulation a political “kiss of life”—one Ankara is now seeking to exploit as it pushes the EU to fulfill what it considers its commitments to end the Turkish Cypriot community’s isolation.
