magikthrill wrote:Saint Jimmy wrote:Three, that, pre-97, 'Greece was blackmailing her EU partners with the threat that they would block the whole enlargement negotiation if Cyprus was excluded from the first group'.
Yes thats when he had a PM with balls. Still though I accept and understand this. However, how can the EU succumb to Greece? This is what I don't undertand.
What do you mean 'how', magik? Just like that! If Hannay says it (assuming he knows a tad more than we do), and if you accept it as being true (coming from Hannay), then the end result (Cyprus acceded in the first group) should not leave you with any 'how' or 'why' questions...
The way I see it, they succumbed because their losses, if the risk materialized ('the risk' being blocking the enlargement process, at least for a while), would have been greater than the gains (not including Cyprus in the first enlargement wave, which, by the way, I'm pretty sure they'd much love to do, if for no other reason, simply to avoid the mess they're into now: the Cyprus problem. Do you not think they'd prefer a reunified, problem-free island to accede?).
And, of course, don't forget the second factor Hannay gave. The EU had decided that, no matter what the case, seeing as how Denktash was/is extremely anti-EU, and Clerides was pro-EU, it could not possibly have been considered that the EU could hold the legitimate government of the island 'hostage' to Denktash's views. Because that's what a decision blocking the RoC out until a solution was reached would have amounted to: Denktash controlling (and thus blocking) the RoC's accession.
So, I guess, both these parameters were at work; it wasn't (only) a matter of the EU succumbing to Greece's blackmail.
