Cyprus-Forum.com

[magikthrill]

some comments:

The last three opinions of the first chart of GCs are very interesting and i believe are more promising than those from the equivalent TC chart.

When the TCs show high attitude to having GCs as their neighbours to the y mean neighbourhood neighbours or nation neighbours like viewpoint does

the third chart about GC highest motives for a solution indicate how T-Paps proposals are the exact proposals of the GCs so people who attack him on this stance are attacking the GC community.

[cannedmoose]

Interesting figures, most interesting ones to me personally (for selfish reasons alone) are those regarding fully enjoying the fruits of EU membership... an expected result from the TC side but I was quite surprised it ranked so highly amongst those GC's polled. Interesting indeed.

[Alexandros Lordos]

How are these 'mean' figures derived and directly comparable accross the two groups (TC and GC) ?

Well, for the underlying attitudes question, "Totally agree has a value of 2, "Partly agree" has 1, "Neither Agree nοr disagree" has a value of 0, "Partly disagree" has -1, "Totally Disagree" has -2.

So if a mean for a particular question is near 0, it means that the respondents were divided on this issue, if it is near 1 or 2 it means most respondents agreed, if it is near -1 or -2 it means most respondents disagreed. GCs tended to agree amongst themselves more and cluster at either the "agree" or "disagree" end, whereas the TCs tended to be divided in their opinions and so their overall responses are near 0.

For the motives question, "Primary Motive" has a value of 2, "Secondary Motive" has a value of 1, "Not at all a motive" a value of 0. GCs on the whole tended to see most motives as primary, something which was not the case with TCs.

[Alexandros Lordos]

Interesting figures, most interesting ones to me personally (for selfish reasons alone) are those regarding fully enjoying the fruits of EU membership... an expected result from the TC side but I was quite surprised it ranked so highly amongst those GC's polled. Interesting indeed.

Yes, because of the Cyprus Problem GCs have a confrontational relation with Europe and they dont like that. Also, GCs hope that after a solution Cyprus will become regionally significant as a "cross-roads of civilizations", again giving it a stronger voice within Europe.

[Alexandros Lordos]

The last three opinions of the first chart of GCs are very interesting and i believe are more promising than those from the equivalent TC chart.

Yes, it seems that on the level of individual citizens, GCs are ready to take responsibility, listen to TC concerns, and work towards a common Cypriot identity.

TC results are marred by the voice of the settlers. When I analyzed TCs and Settlers separately, TCs have a much firmer "pro-reunification" stance, whereas settlers strongly favor "each community going its own way".

When the TCs show high attitude to having GCs as their neighbours to the y mean neighbourhood neighbours or nation neighbours like viewpoint does

Neighborhood neighborhoods. The question was clear.

[erolz]

Well, for the underlying attitudes question,

Thanks for the expaination.

[magikthrill]

settlers strongly favor "each community going its own way".

heres an idea. the settler "community" takes its own way back to Turkey

[erolz]

TC results are marred by the voice of the settlers. When I analyzed TCs and Settlers separately, TCs have a much firmer "pro-reunification" stance, whereas settlers strongly favor "each community going its own way".

If you get a chance could we have the same charts for TC and settlers split out?

[Alexandros Lordos]

TC results are marred by the voice of the settlers. When I analyzed TCs and Settlers separately, TCs have a much firmer "pro-reunification" stance, whereas settlers strongly favor "each community going its own way".

If you get a chance could we have the same charts for TC and settlers split out?

OK, I'll do it in a while.

[MicAtCyp]

Alexandre,

You seem to forget that all the legal matters, hiring of lawyers, disputes etc will occur when there is a Property Committee involved to a much higher degree than when there is not. Secondly you must know that the Property committee will not just proceed automatically to whatever it decides. Each and every decision was liable to final approval by the property owner.

Given the fact that most cases would not end end to "get a new house" (of what quality, of what design, of what orientation, of what. . . ) or new property or monetary compensation, you tell me how many you think would ever agree with the Committee and how many would simply go to courts. I leave aside that the formation of such a committee can be disputed as illegal at the ECHR. . .

As per Anan Plan the Property Committe CANNOT proceed unless there is a considerable amount of properties on which there are no disputes as to what they will be compensated/exchanged with. According to the Anan Plan the Property committee will accept applications for one year after the signature of the fundamental agreement and for another year after the implementation. That is to say the process of applications will be completed roughly two years after the signature of the primary Agreement. Notice that "apllications" in that case did not mean voluntary participation. They actually meant claim of ownership which ownership is automattically deprived or passed on to that Committee.


After these 2 years it will begin examining the applications (i. e the ownership deeds) … In Order to proceed to the next step the Property committeeas described in the Anan Plan must have decided for at least the 90% of the applications and to all those decisions to have the final consent/approval of the applicants.
In my opinion it will be a miracle if the Property committee will ever manage 2 years after the first 2 years of applications (i. e after 4 years from solution) to get more than 5% approvals. Do you know how many years will be needed for court cases against the Property committee to ever reach a reasonable percentage of approved cases to start a real work? Minimum 15?

If you notice carefully you will notice that actually the Property Committee of the Anan Plan had two functions. First to presumably arrange the properties second to control who would return.
One does not need to be a prophet to realise that this committee would simply fail in all its roles dut to legal disputes on the majority of decisions it will take.

I am sorry but you are wrong in your opinion that the Property committee wil not create inflation, or it will be able to control it. It will because it will have to sell masssively for prolonged periods and furthermore under distorted market conditions - freely in the GCCS restricted in the TCCS -
This will not happen if the matter is left to the individuals because no individual will be forced to buy if the prices skyrocket or sell if they fall very low.He will simply hold back. The property Committee cannot hold back because it will have open obligations known to everybody...
As you know the only burden to that totally uncontrollable inflation was to compensate the refugees with bonds maturing, what 25 years after? These were the sophistries concerning the Property committee.

You seem to base your argumentation on the low costs of building new homes due to issuing of tenders and centralising the whole matter. On the other hand however the rule for such contracts is a complete failure in quality, corruption, and lubrication. We have a lot of examples that in the end such contsruction projects either costed more than what they should or to endless maintenance rexpenses due to low quality. As for employing people who will do specialised expensive work, like Land surveyors etc you forget that the Government itself is
currently buying these services from the specialists of the private sector because there are very few around. Generally your argument for lower costs is valid, but it is debatable how lower those costs will be in non absolute terms.

Now lets see what will happen if the matter of properties is left upon the individuals to arrange.
A GC naned A has a house and say 10 donums of agricultural land. The house is used by a TC B and the agricultural land by a TC called C. What are the options:

Mr A wants to sell. B wants to buy. B does not want to buy. B wants to exchange. B wants to rent for a few years. B wants to rent for ever. B is not financially able either to buy or even rent. B already paid for the value to another TC and consider it already bought.
Now if the property is also improved the matter ends to additional options, and if Mr A does not want to sell, or exchange or rent we end up to about one hundred options.

The glory of letting the initiative of the individuals function is that all those options finally end up to either an agreement between the 2 or disagreement.In my opinion the agreement has more chances.
All I can say that any agreement on the property issue has to involve a set of rules that will strike out the majority of those disagreements when those are simply illogical..For example what will happen when A is willing to pay a reasonable price but A does not accept because he simply wants to return to that very house..Or B does not want to pay or exchange anything but still want to use the property. Or B is so poor that can do nothing....

You may say that this whole process will create inflation.For example A exchanges with B but the value of properties is not equal so one of the 2 has to pay some additional money to the other.Don't be mistaken by the fact that some people will be debtors and some others creditors.This does not create inflation.What will create inflation is when those creditors start using their money for a very specific product i.e to buy land and that specific product is not available. The truth is that after a solution the supply and demand of land and properties will be on equal footing for at least 10 years. And I don't agree the property developers will rush to grab property. This is NOT how 99% of the property developers work. As for the rest 1% who own their own huge capital everybody knows that the prices of land will fall sharply from what they are today in the free areas and will rise in the other part. So perhaps one of the matters that need be agreed with a solution is that only refugees can buy land in the TCCS.

You talked about the difficulty for someone to sell his property, get the money and start building his own house. I see no difficulty at all. All we need is a catalyst to start the wheel rotating. This catalyst are the people who already have enough money to buy land and start building without the need to first sell their properties. This initial spark is enough to enable those selling to get money and start their own buying and building and so on and so on, the wheel starts rotating.

I forgot to mention the obvious advantage of letting the individuals arrange the matter:The whole process will start in 1 day not in 15 years!

It is obvious that the private initiatve will end up to a certain number of people having to abandon properties/homes that they use simply because they have nothing to exchange/sell or they are too poor. Most of them will be settlers. This is where the responsibility of Turkey lies (regarding the settlers who will stay) and the responsibility of the state for the poor GC and TCs to build houses for those people that of course they will not get free but pay a small amount every month.