Front Page Headlines
A new way of doing business
The blockchain revolution is at hand but what does it mean?
- Comment: Enosis vs Taksim debated
- Spicy and light halloumi prevented from being exported
Secret veto to the TCs on natural gas
Ensuring through special majority and double source of power through residual power as well as a separation of the executive through presidency or prime ministry.
- ‘Tied up’ on the way to the talks – The faits accomplis are expanding and deepening.
- Kyriacos Mitsotakis: Tomorrow the first visit to Nicosia with focus on the Cyprob
- Famagusta mayoralty: Reversal of the climate by parties on (candidate) Trangolas
- Position: Mitsotakis’ visit (Editorial on the way Mitsotakis is expected to handle the Cyprob)
- Savvas Iacovides: To Kyriacos Mitsotakis – If Cyprus is Turkified, Greece too will be conquered (opinion piece)
- Andreas Theophanous: The road on energy and Cyprob is long (opinion piece)
In 2003 too, (a proposal on) Varosha was rejected
Opportunities were lost. It’s not just in 1978 and 2004 that opportunities were lost on Famagusta. (Rauf) Denktash, to disengage from the Hague procedure offered Tassos (Papadopoulos) on April 2, 2003 Varosha, seeking other things in exchange of which today, only restrictions on the TC community’s trade continue to apply. Spyros Kyprianou in 1978 and Nicos Anastasiades in 2014 each count one ‘No’ to initiatives on Varosha while Tassos Papadopoulos holds the record with two ‘Nos’, one in 2003 and the one in 2004 which is more known.
- Interview: Toumazos Tsielepis – “The president must give a clear answer to Cavusoglu”
- What is the duty of Nicos Anastasiades?
- EU Commissioners: Cypriot change of guard at the Commission
- Chronicle: The GC war prisoners of 1974 (free supplement given with Sunday’s Politis)
The new procedure is being expedited
Timeframes until the end of October with natural gas and the pseudo-elections at the forefront. Ankara is on board only for a confederation.
- (Anastasiades-Akinci) are looking for a way out of the dead-end
- Brussels: The EU is under Turkish pressure on the sanctions
- Titina Loizidou: Political games are more powerful
- The Treaty of Guarantee and the UN Charter
- Unforgivable deceit on the invasion (Analysis by Yiannakis Omirou)
- Concerning influx of tourists to the occupied areas
- Holy Tylliria: 55 years of memory
- (Defence Minister) Savvas Angelides: Calmness must not be mistaken for weakness
- Theodoros Karyotis: The EEZ is lost in the new Greek parliament
- Nicos Charalambous: Solution to the energy issue only with an international conference
- Stefanos Constantinides: We are being dragged into a five-party conference with Turkish standards (opinion piece)
- Yiannis Spanos: To the echoes of the canons (opinion piece)
- Christos Iacovou: Akinci’s borrowed abilities and stale value (opinion piece)
- Alecos Markides: The individual appeals to the ECHR against the RoC (opinion piece)
Everything is planned for an agreed solution
Washington and London in consultations with Guterres who asked for support from the Security Council on lifting the deadlock.
- Anastasiades-Cavusolgu: Ankara says it has proof of the meetings
- Battle on the wording of the UN report: We did you a favour, the Security Council’s message to Nicosia
- Interview with Alecos Markides: The president, DISY, AKEL and Akinci are the catalysts of a solution – The two parties have the same line on the Cyprob and ought to stop stalling.
- DISY-AKEL with new state of affairs – The two big ones are sending messages ahead of the Cyprob.
- (Interior Minister) Constantinos Petrides: Unprecedented migration calls for measures
- Intervention: Andreas Paraschos – The time of the leaders
- Intervention: Petros Zarounas – German mediation on overlapping maritime zones?
- Russia and Turkey are headed for the S-500, after the S-400 agreement
Heatwave… of bank foreclosures
Banks have scheduled foreclosures of 370 properties, totalling €110m in value, in August and the first days of September while new properties are being added daily. In fact, the list includes 79 houses and apartments most of which fall under the criteria of the Estia scheme. In Nicosia alone, banks and credit purchase companies have filed notifications for the auction of 105 properties amounting to €28.8m in total.
- Stefanos Stefanou: Cyprob solution a vital need
- Roman Kononenco: Risk of a new armament raceB
- Baranga: A humble roof for everyone – A new publishing house aiming to house authors from both communities and to promote works that contribute to peace and reunification. One baranga (shed), one project, one dream on the Green Line.
- Inter-party dialogue for the new Famagusta mayor
- Trump is thinking about it –The S-400 in operation next spring.
She gets back to work
Lute remains in the game and returns in early September. The meeting of the two leaders on August 9 is important but more critical and defining for any future developments will be the period until the joint meeting in New York.
- Alecos Markides: April 2003 – An unknown correspondence relating to Famagusta
- Analysis: The only road allowed by the Security Council
- (DISY MEP) Lefteris Christoforou: The future of the GCs and TCs is ensured within the EU
- Famagusta Municipality: Andreas Lordos announced his candidacy
Main News
Sides could face last chance for a BBF solution
Alithia, Kathimerini, Phileleftheros
Negotiations Process, CBMs
OVERVIEW
According to Kathimerini, the conference on Cyprus in September is the last chance for the two sides to agree on a federal, single state solution and if they don’t, other types of solution will be sought.
The daily, citing well-informed sources, reports that prior to the vote by the Security Council on the UNFICYP mandate, consultations took place between close associates of the UN Secretary-General and UK and US officials. The two countries sought Guterres’ personal involvement while the UN officials requested strong support from the Security Council to lift the deadlock. Guterres pointed out in his report in which areas he wanted support and that was reflected in the resolution for the latest renewal of the UNFICYP mandate.
The 3rd and 4th paragraphs of the introduction and 5th and 15th paragraphs of the resolution’s main body were introduced following the consultations.
Guterres’ plan is to let the two leaders talk between them on August 9 and then meet them at the end of September with the aim of securing reassurances they are ready to attend an informal conference in the Crans-Montana format. It is not ruled out that he might send Lute to Cyprus between August and end of September, the daily reports.
According to the paper, it is expected the two leaders will agree to a five-party plus one conference which, even though it will not be the last chance for a solution, it may be the last chance for a federal, single state solution.
This time, according to political observers, things will be led to the end, until participants say whether there could be an agreed bizonal, bicommunal federal solution without guarantees but with a viable security system. If not, other types of solutions will be sought, the paper reported.
According to Alithia, Lute, who is expected to visit the island possibly twice, is expected to play an important role in the period between the meeting of the two leaders on August 9 and their joint meeting with Guterres towards the end of September.
Phileleftheros in an analysis piece reports that the UN is trying to get results by the end of October to avoid further delays due to the hydrocarbons issue and elections in the occupied areas that will take place in March 2020.
It is for that reason the UN has asked the two leaders through the resolution on UNFICYP to each submit by the end of October their reports on what they have done for the implementation of the mechanism they’ve been called to set up to solve problems, among other things, including a mechanism on military issues.
According to the daily, Nicosia has reservations about the mechanisms, especially when the UN point out that it must not get stuck on the issue of recognition since the government reacts to attempts to upgrade the separatist entity.
Well-informed sources told the daily that during September and October there will be meetings and contacts that reinforce the role and actions of technical committees but also contacts at the political level.
In September, an informal five-party conference is to take place also at a technocratic level, the paper reported.
As regards hydrocarbons, Turkey seems to get her way since it is expected that the issue will be discussed while energy companies operating in the Cypriot EEZ want this issue to be resolved.
On the pseudo-elections in the occupied areas, the daily reports that it is believed the campaign will begin in September and this will affect the climate and efforts.
Observers assess that Turkey will impose the confederation choice through its actions. The problem is that she finds in Nicosia also interlocutors in favour of such a choice that will be devastating for Cyprus, Phileleftheros said.
Anastasiades’ new ideas provide TCs a secret veto on energy issues
Simerini
Negotiations Process, Energy, Governance & Power Sharing
OVERVIEW
Simerini reports that among the proposals Anastasiades submitted to the National Council on October 23, 2018, for lifting the deadlock, there is one that gives a secret veto to the TCs on hydrocarbons-related issues.
In an analysis piece by political analyst and journalist Yiannos Charalambides, the daily said that Anastasiades’ 2018 proposal explains his recent statements on ensuring the rights of TCs on the issue of natural gas.
As part of his new ideas based on a loose federation, Anastasiades suggests that natural gas and EEZ issues to be among the competencies of the federal government and regulated by the Law of the Sea while decisions will be taken with a special majority vote. This means that there will be a form of secret veto in place since, without the agreement by the TCs, no decision will be taken, the paper reported.
In the same document, Anastasiades also suggested that the residual power will belong to the two equal constituent states and not the federal government.
This position goes against what the country’s leadership has been claiming it would go after, the paper said, since it means that all those competencies that will not belong to the central government will belong to the constituent states that will have equal status. This concerns what in the EU is called the principle of subsidiarity, the paper said.