Clerides pleads with party leaders on EU legislation

By Andrew Adamides

PRESIDENT Glafcos Clerides has invited the political parties to discuss the bills that need to be passed by the House in order to keep in line with EU accession commitments.

In letters made public yesterday, Clerides said that the bills had to be discussed before they went before the House.

The topics include the liberalisation of the financial system, government income and social expenses, VAT, consumer taxes, semi-government organisations, the defence levy, the proposed national health system, court policy and the social security system.

Commenting on the letters, government spokesman Christos Stylianides said yesterday the government was expecting a positive response from party leaders.

Clerides’ proposals were “genuine”, the spokesman added, rejecting accusations that the approach was a ploy to bring parties to the negotiating table so the president could “fool” them into adopting policies that had been rejected last year as part of a proposed package of tax reforms.

Asked why the letters had only been sent to certain parties, Stylianides said the government wouldn’t turn its back on anyone wanting to discuss the matter. Changes had to be made at minimum cost to society and should therefore be made with the co-operation of all political leaders, he concluded.

Speaking after a meeting with Clerides, Cyprus’ Chief EU Negotiator George Vassiliou said yesterday he was working on a bill that would simplify the procedure for sending to the house the bills needed to keep up with EU demands. He said he hadn’t discussed the letter with Clerides, but underlined that time was of the essence, repeating his call for the appointment of deputy ministers in order to get everything completed on schedule.

Vassiliou said that while deputies had doubled in number, the number of ministers had remained the same, at a time when the need for them has increased manyfold.

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