Cyprus: EU Presidency Debate
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Main Page: Lord Harrison (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Harrison's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(13 years, 1 month ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they will take to ensure that both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities will be involved in Cyprus’s presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2012.
My Lords, as the noble Lord may be aware, President Christofias has publicly stated that he would like to achieve a settlement before Cyprus’s presidency of the European Union, and it is the United Kingdom’s hope that this is achieved to the benefit of all Cypriots. In such circumstances, both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities will be part of Cyprus’s EU presidency.
My Lords, the United Kingdom is, thankfully, one of the guarantor powers for Cyprus, and we are in an ideal position to bring sensible people together from all sides in an attempt to ensure that the presidency of the European Union, over which Cyprus will preside from July of next year, brings credit to all members and all people in Cyprus. Will the noble Lord contemplate thinking about how to ensure that the two sides do joint planning, and that the venues for the six-month presidency are shared so that all can participate in this enterprise?
This would clearly be the ideal objective, and at the moment many people are working hard on it, including HM Government. Of course Alexander Downer is playing his role as adviser and mediator; and there was the meeting with the UN Secretary-General about a fortnight ago in which there was—I am advised to say—some progress but no breakthrough. So it was not totally negative, but obviously there is a long way to go. The next meeting is in January and we hope that there will be a further basis of agreement after that, as we move towards the kind of solution that many of us have sought and longed for for so long.