Bananiot wrote:This is a common secret:
Gunter Verheugen made a statement before the European Parliament on Wednesday April27 2004. He said that the EU was "deceived by the government of Cyprus" because it did not keep its commitment to accept the Annan plan. Verheugen thinks he was deceived because the Cyprus government pretended it wanted solution under the Annan plan only to achieve EU accession and when accession was achieved they went back on their commitments.
After the New York agreement, when Verheugen visited Cyprus on the day the talks started he said, after meeting Papadopoulos, that their meeting was brief because of "full agreement". What do you think they agreed on? Earlier, speaking in Brussels, Verheugen said" "Papadopoulos is telling all his visitors that he is ready to restart negotiations and he is looking to find a solution in the framework of the Annan plan" and put the responsibility exclusively on the other side. "Unfortunately I cannot say the same about Mr Denktash who clearly said the Annan plan was dead and no solution could be found in the framework of this plan." The solution "cannot be found with Mr Denktash, who thinks he can still drag the rest of the world by the nose for a long time".
Is this clear for you Paphitis? Do you still think that we entered the EU on our own merit?
We played a dirty trick on them, thinking that once inside, we can find a better, so called European solution. Papadopoulos and consequently Cyprus, lost all credibility through playing a game that may work fine in some coffee shop, high on the Troodos mountains, but once again we find ourselves on the receiving end of the stick and are widely considered as the black sheep of Europe.
Bananiot,
This is why it make sense that Greece helped Cyprus get into the EU, by threatening to use her veto power to prevent any enlargement unless Cyprus was also in the mix. We also know that Cyprus was not required to say YES on the Annan Plan as a condition to become a member despite what Gunter Verheugen says, because he was saying that
"I personally felt cheated" and not saying that the EU was cheated. Cyprus also met ALL the criterias set by the EU to become a member so there was nothing to stop the RoC, but the RoC still could have been vetoed all the same by one or two EU members if they wanted, like the UK. So why did the countries in the EU who were loyal to Turkey to allow Cyprus in the club, they knowing full well that Cyprus would become a major obstacle to Turkey ever becoming an EU member in the future as long as Cyprus problem persisted, since Turkey really never wanted to solve the Cyprus problem, just because the status quo at the time suited Turkey just fine. The possible answer as to why these Turkey loyalist countries did not veto Cyprus is because they wanted the enlargement to take place of the other 9 countries, so Cyprus had to be let it also, but at the same time, the FIX was in to rob Cyprus of it's EU membership potentials to save Turkey, and the "Trojan Horse" that was going to damage the RoC, was the Annan Plan.
Bush, Blair, Erdogan, Verheugen and few others risked everything by placing ALL their bets on the Annan Plan, to get them out of the problem of letting Cyprus in, temperoraly, so they thought, because the moment the AP passes, Blair and Verheugen could have made the case to the EU, that since the passing of the AP, the RoC no longer existed and that now there was a new entity called the "United Cyprus", therefore, Cyprus no longer qualified to become an EU member, and if the new "United Cyprus" wanted to become an EU member, they would need to re-apply. That's why the referendum had to be done in a hurry just a short time before the RoC became a full EU member. This would have gotten Cyprus out of becoming an EU member as planned a week later and have also gotten Turkey off the hook and would have removed ALL Cyprus obstacles for own her EU membership, as well as established herself the main player in Cyprus affairs and a new "TC state" in the north, which would solely be controlled by Turkey herself. But the gamble did not pay off, because Papadopoulos
"burnt the trojan horse" and the AP was dead on arrival with an OXI plea from him, not that there was ever a guarantee that the GCs would have agreed to the AP even if he kept his mouth shut. Had Turkey really wanted a workable solution, things may have been different, but at the same time, I don't see ANY EU members today complaining about the outcome of the AP, because it does mean keeping Turkey out until Turkey truly reforms internally and also solves the Cyprus problem to the satisfaction of the EU and the GCs and not just the TCs and herself!
