By Timothy Spyrou
I DON’T like watching sequels to bad films, especially when the endings are even worse. However, I fear that as a nation, we are booking front row seats with the government’s proposed purchase of two frigates.
The proposal strongly resembles the S300 missiles fiasco. A DISY president champions a harebrained idea to purchase expensive weaponry that angers Turkey. Part of the reason, is to please a hardline coalition partner that is a cronyism based party.
The defence minister, Fotis Fotiou is a possible future leader of coalition partner DIKO, just like EDEK’s Yiannakis Omirou was in 1998 during his stint in the job.
When Turkey reacted threateningly, we came under intense international pressure to ditch the S300 project, even though we had already paid for the missiles. In this new scenario, we will also come under pressure for economic reasons, making this farce a potentially bigger disaster.
Firstly, the Troika will justifiably argue that we should be using any extra funds in a productive, socially beneficial manner, or that we should put it towards paying down our debt. The possible purchase of frigates will not create jobs and nor will it help families who are queuing at soup kitchens.
The purchase will also prove to be an extra annual expense because of maintenance costs, as is the case for all military hardware.
Secondly, our lenders rightly expect us to be wise with our natural resources and to use them as a springboard to an economic comeback. Furthermore, they expect that we would use some of the increased revenues to pay back the bailout loans.
In this sense, the frigates may actually pose a long term cost to our growth outlook. It will give the Turkish military, regardless of whether it actually has Erdogan’s consent, an opportunity to flex its nationalist muscle.
Mr Loucas Charalambous (Sunday Mail, May 26) said that Turkey could easily sink our frigates. That outlook is optimistic.
In reality, a simple incursion into our airspace and territorial waters by a squadron that fires a few warning shots will be more than enough to end the domestic and foreign investment needed to develop any natural gas reserves and the related infrastructure.
No foreign energy company will want to invest its people and assets in a danger zone, because the risk premiums would be too high, and our government certainly can’t afford to cover the cost of insurance.
Furthermore, even a small scale incident like this would be enough to kill whatever economic confidence we have left.
The fourth reason why the Troika will oppose this is that it will not just be a short and medium term setback to our natural gas prospects, but it will end them for good.
There will obviously be a slow build up to the incident/crisis that would alienate the Turkish Cypriots, making negotiations for a settlement of any sort impossible.
Before the inevitable incident, the hawkish media and politicians will be taking our hardline, rejectionist mindsets to 2004 referendum levels, further complicating matters.
The other stakeholders in the Cyprus problem, including Greece, will finally lose their patience with our recklessness and shrug our pleas for their help off.
When it finally sinks in to our heads that we have finally killed off efforts to resolve our conflict that guarantees our joint security and prosperity, be it reunification or managed partition, we will lose all confidence in the future.
The natural gas deposits in our exclusive economic zone will remain untapped, except for any sources off the coast of Kyrenia and occupied Famagusta, where Turkey will be the sole beneficiary, as it will eventually find a market, legitimacy be damned. Far from securing our wealth, the purchase of the frigates will merely “cement” Turkey’s strategic dominance over us, just like AKEL’s “soft no for a future yes” might have cemented permanent partition.
To be blunt, an outside observer who knows our political history will say that this is a cynical ploy by DIKO to escape its responsibilities as a member of the governing coalition.
Although EDEK was burned by the S300 fiasco, its leaders knew that continuing the DISY-EDEK coalition would cost them more politically, given not only their different ideologies, but their dove versus hawk stance on the peace talks.
DIKO is historically the main rejectionist political force when it comes to the Cyprus problem.
Furthermore, it has historically been the party that gains the most from cronyism and patronage. Already, this outlook has distorted Anastasiades’ policies.
The President, parroting DIKO, is saying that the hydrocarbons issue is completely separate from the economic crisis and the island’s frozen conflict, a position that flies in the face of reality.
How will our economy rebound if Turkish generals threaten to seize our natural gas fields and Grey Wolves rampage through Ledra Street because the Turkish Cypriots want to secure their share of the wealth?
Anastasiades has also adopted DIKO’s position that there will be “no privatisations, no more layoffs, and no more wage cuts”.
Despite Garoyian getting everything he wanted, he is in a far more difficult position than he ever expected to be for three reasons.
One is Lilikas’ unexpectedly strong showing, two is Nicholas Papadopoulos’ leadership challenge and three is the March 15th surprise from the Eurogroup.
Even after he had DIKO vote ‘OXI’ to the deposit tax, in exchange from an even worse deal, Garoyian knows that his hopes of reclaiming the Speakership and seeing DIKO rewarded by voters for its membership in the “National Salvation” coalition have grown very slim indeed.
When the Troika vetoes the purchase of the ships, DIKO will have the pretext to exit the government, saying “We will not tolerate surrendering our sovereignty to foreigners serving Turkish plans to steal our natural gas wealth.”
Garoyian will then be crowning a different president in Eleftheria stadium for the fourth election in a row.
Anastasiades can avoid this looming disaster by asserting his authority and by offering DIKO other goodies that may benefit its standing and improve the economy.
Instead of buying the ships, the defence minister will instead pursue agreements on naval cooperation and training with other countries like Israel.
They will boost Cyprus’s profile enough to please the hyperbolically patriot media, and might even win us brownie points internationally if we develop counter-terrorism, counter-piracy abilities through specialised units.
After appeasing Fotis Fotiou, the President can then announce that the money will be better spent on job creation efforts overseen by one of the three other DIKO controlled ministries, or be divided among them. For example, the commerce minister will welcome the funds, as he can subsidise construction of a solar power plant, fund the creation of a Start Up/Small and Medium Enterprise Bank that will attract private capital, or overhaul the Cyprus Tourism Organisation’s advertising campaign.
The health minister will get more money for the implementation of the NHS, with some money even left over to pay for the cancelled new ambulance services. Education Minister Kenevezos will also probably like it if the earmarked funds could go towards the University of Cyprus or TEPAK so that they could expand student capacity.
Alternatively, the 120million euros could fund school nutrition projects for the neediest, or be used in partnership with the Church to highlight scholarly exploration of our cultural heritage.
Even the Medical School we can’t really afford, which is a part of the University of Cyprus, would be a more deserving candidate for the money.
No matter how the money is reallocated from DIKO’s defence ministry to the other DIKO men, DIKO stands to benefit the most politically.
It is also hard to see the Troika vetoing these expenditures.
The country cannot afford another economic and political disaster, which the frigates will provoke, one way or the other.
DIKO doesn’t want to provoke a military confrontation, but they are behaving like teenagers with Easter firecrackers.
Although Anastasiades is conservative, he must follow Marx’s warning that “History repeats itself, once as tragedy and twice as farce.”
