YOU COULD say that 2005 has been an extraordinary year for an extraordinary man.
He is a man who seems to be waging desperate battles on every front. Yet despite facing two serious criminal allegations (attempting to extort an Drug Squad officer and involvement in smuggling antiquities from the occupied areas), despite having his parliamentary immunity lifted because of the ongoing investigation, despite being condemned from all sides for walking into the buffer zone and snatching a Turkish flag and despite being forced out by his political party, Marios Matsakis is still standing and, in his own words, still flying the flag for Cyprus in Brussels.
Although still extremely popular among the general public and by the media for his bizarre antics and controversial comments, the good doctor is hardly the twinkle in the eye of the political establishment.
The Sunday Mail caught up with the former DIKO Member of the European Parliament in Brussels and discussed a range of subjects with the man “who will continue to fight everybody” if he has to.
Getting to Brussels
First of all, coming to Brussels is a real struggle because there are no daily direct flights, so there is a problem getting here. If I have to be here on a Monday morning, I have to travel to Athens the day before, stay there and then catch an early morning flight to Brussels.
Going to Strasbourg is also difficult. Next week, I will have to fly to Zurich from Larnaca, then fly from Zurich to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt I have to take a bus for around two and a half hours to get to Strasbourg and be there at 5pm for the beginning of the session.
Cyprus Airways doesn’t help and we have made requests from them to assist, not just for us, but also for the many government officials, but there has not been the response that we expected.
Life in Brussels
When I am in Brussels I stay in a hotel and I spend a good 12 to 16 hours in parliament. If we have a session of the plenary, we can stay until midnight. We have our facilities and our offices and there is obviously a lot of work to be done here and we are beginning to get more into a routine now. We are starting to know more of the people, we are getting better prepared and more up-to-date with what is going on.
There is perhaps too much going on and unfortunately we cannot follow everything up. And the reason is simple. There are 20 official committees and there are only six representatives from Cyprus and we are only allowed to be members of one committee. And this is a problem of all the small countries, not just of Cyprus. I raised this issue here and they all told me ‘what can we do? There is nothing that can be done’…
Flying the flag
I always speak about Cyprus here. In fact I am in the process of publishing all the speeches that I have made here in Brussels at the meetings and the plenaries for 2005. It amounts to something like over 50 speeches, one of the most out of all the MEPs. I talk about our national problem and about issues concerning safety and the environment and human rights.
But because for the past six months the Presidency was held by Britain, I thought it was a good time to raise the matter of the British Bases in Cyprus. That is why I have not missed a single opportunity to mention the fact and if you ask anybody here, they now know about the British colonial presence in Cyprus, the use of the bases in Cyprus for things like nuclear weapons and so on. They all know about it. I bring the problems of Cyprus to a new European level and I speak directly.
For example in the foreign affairs committee, I speak directly to people like Ministers and people like Mr Straw about issues such as the British Bases. I have criticised him very strongly on previous occasions, as I have also with the Health Minister, who I spoke about the issue of asbestos in the Berengaria camp in Limassol. I also speak to the Turkish representatives like Ali Babacan, the chief negotiator for Turkey, who I had a confrontation with recently in parliament.
I had a different level and this is why after I had been elected as a MEP, the attempts to destroy became even stronger because it is OK to be in Cyprus but you are confined to the boundaries of Cyprus. But once you get outside and they hear you. The people here understand me. After my speech today (about the presence of nuclear weapons at the British bases in Cyprus) there was a huge applause for me, for someone from a small country.
The European Policy Centre in Brussels
The so-called Policy Centre is not an official organisation of the EU. It is an organisation set up by the Americans and the British as an organ of propaganda in favour of Turkey and against the Greek Cypriots. That is an undeniable fact and you have to do is look at who funds them. I went to a few of their meetings and these are the people who invited Talat and others to come here and to make propaganda in favour of Turkey and in favour of the Turkish position on Cyprus. So when hearing something from them, it should not be regarded as something which is neutral or objective. They certainly do not express the views of the EU.
The potato farmers
The EU has a certain policy on agriculture and there is an ongoing reform on the common agricultural policy, which was voted in two years ago. It was an enormous legislation with around 1,200 amendments and there is a big upheaval in the European Union regarding agriculture. Our problem is miniscule compared to the problems facing France and Poland. The big players here are France and Britain, with Britain trying to retain its rebate and accusing France of getting a lion’s share of the agriculture budget and they want to change that. Everybody else, however, is just saying that the British are simply not paying their share, which they are not.
As far as the potato growers are concerned, this is a tiny problem in the face of the EU and is certainly nothing compared to the political situation in Cyprus. I am sure that a solution will be found along the lines that the agriculture sector in Cyprus doesn’t have much of a future.
The politics back home
The more politicians are getting scared of me, the more I feel that I am succeeding in what I am doing. I want them to be scared of me because I am fighting for a change. I want a real change. I am not a real politician. I am a doctor and I have been looking at things from a different point of view from that of a politician. I have been trying to find practical and real solutions for the people. I don’t want to see sick children and have their parents coming to me and begging me to find a way to cure their sick children because they cannot be treated in Cyprus or because they cannot get the proper treatment in Cyprus. I have been speaking to parents that have lost children because of the inadequacy of doctors or because of the lack of safety at work or because of the appalling road traffic accident record of Cyprus.
These are the sort of changes that I want to make and I do not want to make a future for myself. I don’t care about political parties. In fact, I think that political parties in Cyprus are a cancer of our society and I am not afraid to say this. They are just a cancer. I want to make a real change but when you do that you automatically become an enemy of the political system.
Now the political system in Cyprus is based squarely and entirely on the party system and the interrelationship of the so-called political persons between themselves. And they get everything! What has changed in Cyprus? Nothing! It is like musical chairs because all they do is just move around.
I have tried to change this system, and to change it I have had to fight very hard against the establishment. The establishment in Cyprus is very strong because it is very deep-rooted and they fight anybody who is against it and who threaten
s them. And I am a real threat to them and that is why they are afraid of me.
It doesn’t matter which party I belong to, I am a real threat to the establishment. And they will destroy me. They have tried many times to destroy me in the past and eventually they will destroy me because I am too weak to fight them.
I have fought against the medical establishment – they charged me with that ‘kangaroo’ disciplinary court that they have and they took my licence away for a year just for certain comments that I made. And I had to go to the Supreme Court to be found not guilty. So, for two years, they were causing me an enormous amount of inconvenience but I managed to survive, but at very great cost to myself and my family.
Now they have found something else against me when I said a few certain things about the police. Now if I survive this, they will find something else.
Snatching the Turkish flag
These people, the politicians, they are shouting ‘we must fight, we must resist for our ancestors and fight for our freedom!’ but when it comes to practical things, what did I do? I went and removed a flag, a piece of cloth in the buffer zone. That’s all! And suddenly everybody tried to eat me alive!
It was the first time I remember that Erdogan, Denktash, Papadopoulos and the opposition all agreed. And they agreed against me. And who am I? I just went with a tie during the middle of the day and lowered a piece of cloth on which was the crescent and the star of the Turkish flag. That is all I did and they all tried to kill me. So this is the reality of Cyprus. But the people are my power and they have voted for me three times. I rely and I believe in the Cypriot people.
The British Bases
It is ridiculous the way things are happening in Cyprus. Look at the British Bases. There is no country in the European Union that would accept this sort of establishment in Cyprus. Cyprus is under semi-colonisation by Britain. There is no other way to explain it and if the government says otherwise, they are lying to the people. Apart from the bases, they have radar stations on Mount Olympus, at Ayios Nicolaos and other places; they have the right of presence in all of our airports and ports, the right of passage everywhere in Cyprus whether it be by land, air or sea without any authority; their transportation takes place with their own vehicles without paying a single penny on taxation and without subjecting their cars to proper testing like MOT; and they have the right to intervene and take over all water stations, power stations or anything they feel is necessary for their existence. They can do that! So what kind of independence do we have?
Can the Cypriots not see that we are not independent! And yet our government is scared. There has not been a single political leader in Cyprus who is not scared. All they are good for is talking, especially when they go to church for a memorial service or when they are talking from balconies in celebration. That is all that they are good for. When it comes to the crunch like with the S-300 missile saga and the 2004 referendum, everyone saw that they bowed their heads and ran away. I cannot do that.
People have to understand that in today’s world, if you bow your head, you will be struck until you fall to the ground. But the establishment is OK with that. They have their properties, their positions, they are well off, so they are fine! But it is the poor people and the 99.9 per cent of the Cypriots that are suffering daily because of this. This has to change and I will fight it all the way, but I tell you from now that I do not stand a chance.
They will destroy me in the end but I will go down fighting!
Parliamentary immunity
The question of what is happening with my immunity in Cyprus is not something, which is well-know in Brussels. The question of immunity here is not something extraordinary. In the oncoming plenum in Strasbourg there are two or three cases involving immunity. So it is routine. But the issue with my case is different. My issue is a question of the supremacy of the constitution of Cyprus or the supremacy of European law. It has always been my position that the constitution of Cyprus was above the European acquis and I was proved right.
The point I put forward was that I didn’t try to defend myself by accusing Cyprus. My only point of objection that I raised was that there should be respect for the constitution of Cyprus and nothing else. And this is why I feel bitter because the decision was taken not to respect the constitution of Cyprus. All my fellow MEPs, apart from Mr Matsis, although they all knew the problem chose to obey the orders given to them by their parties in Cyprus and vote against the respect of the constitution of their country.
