Stavros Lygeros: What Greece and Cyprus gain at the EU Summit

Can Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President of Cyprus Nikos Anastasiades say that they have anything to be satisfied about with the results of the EU Summit? What did they aim for in going there, and what are the benefits they gained there?

If we clear the air of the, obvious, government propaganda, both here and in Cyprus, if we take away rhetorical expediency, and look coldly at what the Republic of Cyprus and Greece gained, we can see that, yet again, gained mere words and promises, while agreeing to specific actions.

This means that they agreed to the imposition of sanctions against Belarus, which is what Germany, many other, mostly western European countries, wanted. In other words, they paid cash, and got only promises. Promises the fulfillment of which is by no means assured, if we are to judge from the recent past.

We should note that this Summit was originally scheduled (and postponed) to avoid the imposition of sanctions on Turkey. The EU decided to hold a Summit to look at the issue of Turkish – EU relations, holistically.

But what did really happen? What happened was a series of various diplomatic tricks with the aim of “derailing” the demands of Nicosia and Athens. Within this framework, one can discern Berlin’s diplomatic intervention aiming at the resumption of the Greece – Turkey exploratory talks, or to be more exact Greece – Turkey negotiations.

And as was natural, and have been warning for some time, the beginning of said talks was used as an argument by those who wanted Turkey to get off with just a slap on the wrist. What they said was: “Allow room for diplomacy. The talks between Athens and Ankara are just beginning. If sanctions are applied, Turkey won’t come to the table. Therefore, let’s not sink this.” In other words we handed them the argument they were seeking.

But let’s look at the essence of things. Sanctions were imposed on a country, but why? Because a non – EU member country, Bealrus, was judged by the EU as not holding fair elections, last time around. This issue is of secondary importance, in comparison to the other issue that was placed on the scales, meaning the fact that Turkey is undertaking piratical activities within the EEZ of Cyprus, while they also attempted to do in the Greek EEZ.

On the one hand, the Oruc Reis headed to the port of Antalya for maintenance, and this gave the opportunity for tsome to say that there was a de-esclation, although the Turks didn’t use this wording, and on the other Turkish piratical operations continued.

Therefore, we have unabashed, continuous, systematic, clearcut abrogation of the sovereign rights of a member state, and that’s why the Eu is tossing the ball off the court, under various pretexts, throughout the recent period.

What is at stake is not just the issue of rights of the Republic of Cyprus. What is at stake is the reliability of the European Union. To be more precise it was “weighed measured and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27). If we want to call things by their true name, what happened at the Summit was a disgrace and debasement of the principles on which, supposedly, the EU has been established.

Once again, it has been proven, and on this level, that the big boss is Germany.