PRESIDENT Glafcos Clerides yesterday called a meeting of the National Council for June 18, which will for the first time convene in its new composition with representatives of all eight parties elected to Parliament in the May 27 elections.
Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou yesterday announced that the President’s top advisory body on the Cyprus issue would discuss developments in the effort to reach a settlement on the island as well as the Republic’s course for European Union accession.
The parliamentary party leaders will also examine issues relating to how the National Council operates, in view of the increase in the number of its members.
There are worries that the room where the meetings of the National Council have been held so far will be too small to host the meetings of the new 16-member body.
Each party represented in the House participates in the National Council with its leader and another member, usually its parliamentary representative.
Left-wing AKEL, right-wing DISY, centre-right DIKO, the Social Democrats and the United Democrats were the only parties represented in the National Council until now. However, New Horizons, ADIK, and the Greens managed to secure one seat each at the elections, giving them the right to take part in the Council’s deliberations.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
