THE HOUSE of Representatives began the debate on ratification of the EU Constitution Treaty yesterday.
“The Constitutional Treaty is the most important landmark in the path of the EU towards European integration,” said Foreign Minister George Iacovou in parliament yesterday.
He highlighted that Cyprus’ accession to the EU “puts the future of our country and people on new very important foundations”.
While discussing the draft treaty, Iacovou noted that the Charter of Fundamental Rights incorporated in the treaty provided a greater protection of rights for citizens than those included in the European Convention of Human Rights.
Asked by a number of deputies why the draft treaty was not put to referendum instead of ratification by parliament, Iacovou explained that the state was not legally bound to hold a referendum to ratify a “treaty”. The Cyprus constitution provides that a treaty may be submitted as a bill in parliament, discussed and then voted on.
Independent deputy Demetris Syllouris asked if the government had made a study on the pros and cons of the draft constitution, and the points where it conflicted with the Cyprus constitution.
The minister clarified that where there was conflict, European law was supreme over Cyprus law.
Three of Cyprus’ European Parliamentarians were also present at the debate, DISY’s Yiannakis Cassoulides and Panayiotis Demetriou and independent Yiannakis Matsis.
A number of deputies asked the minister what was being done to inform the public about the draft constitution, particularly given that a recent poll revealed that 65 per cent of Cypriots had never heard of it, while only 23 per cent approved of the constitution, the lowest rate in the EU.
“These discussions should have been made before EU accession since 80 per cent of the constitution is a codification of previous and existing treaties,” said Iacovou.
Apart from referring to the government’s information campaign launched on Thursday, the minister had this to say: “In reality, we have all made big efforts in the past, during the Convention for Europe, to inform people. There was full transparency during the procedure of drafting the treaty.”
The minister laid a large portion of the blame for the apparent ignorance or indifference of the people on the media.
“Every time I arrived from Europe I made announcements of what had been discussed. The media never asked even one question on the constitution. Just recently, I was meant to talk for 15 minutes on a radio show about the constitution, but they wanted to talk about something else.
“It is the responsibility of all of us, the government, the House and the parties (to inform the public),” said Iacovou.
Three European member states have already ratified the treaty (Hungary, Lithuania and Italy) while five intend on letting the people decide by holding a referendum (France, Spain, Denmark, the Czech Republic and the UK).
The parliamentary debate in Cyprus is expected to go on for at least a month, until it is put to vote.
