FOUR parliamentary parties submitted a draft decision to the House last Thursday that envisaged Cyprus applying for membership of Partnership for Peace (PfP). The draft, put together on the initiative of DISY, aims to by-pass the government’s well-known and oft-repeated opposition to membership of the Partnership, which is directly linked to NATO.
The four parties – DISY, EDEK, DIKO and EUROKO – have been calling on the government to apply for membership for some time now, but have met with a flat rejection as President Christofias, faithfully adhering to his fanatical anti-NATO position. PfP has always been described as a ‘waiting room’ for NATO membership by Akel and therefore was a no-go area for Cyprus.
Christofias has publicly stated on more than one occasion he would never agree to join NATO, because it was a murderous organisation that undermined world peace, oppressed people and was involved in the Turkish invasion. The Cold War never ended for Cyprus’ communists which is why joining PfP is inconceivable for them. After all, the PfP programme is a way for individual countries to form partnership with NATO.
Aware of the president’s dogmatic position, why have the parties even bothered to prepare a draft decision certain to create a stand-off between the legislature and the executive? Did they believe they would be able to force his hand by doing so and claim there was a provision of the constitution allowing them this course of action?
In a way, they have played into his hands because the general impression is that they are violating the constitution, thus allowing the government to take the moral high ground. Spokesman Stefanos Stefanou accused the parties of violating the separation of powers, saying that “exercising foreign policy and taking foreign policy decisions is a safeguarded constitutional right of the executive.” It is difficult to disagree with him even if the parties had found a constitutional loop-hole allowing them to pursue their objective.
Even if their interpretation of the constitution was correct and they submitted the application, who would the PfP negotiate its agreement with? None other than the Christofias government which could justifiably refuse to sign any agreement with the Partnership. In fact it is very doubtful that PfP would accept an application not submitted by a country’s government.
The suspicion is the whole enterprise is a smart electoral ploy, aimed at showing up AKEL’s antiquated, ideological prejudices and its refusal to come to terms with today’s realities. But this is something everyone is aware of and there was no need to try to usurp the powers of the executive in order to prove the point.
