THE RULING National Unity Party (UBP) in the north has carried out its threat to monitor and regulate EU programmes and funding by blocking the participation of 15 Turkish Cypriots in an EU-funded environmental education programme in the Czech Republic, it emerged yesterday.
The move came just weeks after the right-wing UBP, in power since April this year, introduced a bylaw into the north’s international aid regulation that effectively transferred the final say on Turkish Cypriot applications for EU funding to the ‘foreign ministry’.
Twenty-one Turkish Cypriot civil servants were to have taken part in the environmental education programme in the Czech Republic at the beginning of November. However, only six were given permission to go.
Yesterday the UBP gave little indication as to why the 15 had been prevented from taking part in the programme. However, one source close to the party leadership suggested the 15 civil servants were “too busy to be given time off”.
The move clearly angered Andrew Rashbash, head of the EU Commission’s Project Support Office in the north, who wrote to ‘prime minister’ Dervish Eroglu complaining that blocking the participation of the 15 had created “major financial implications”.
“Additionally, it creates embarrassment vis-ΰ-vis the Czech authorities, who have done a lot of work planning this study visit for the benefit of your services,” Rashbash’s letter said.
Rashbash’s anger later appeared to have abated when, in a written statement to the Cyprus Mail, he said the blocking of the civil servants’ participation was due “perhaps to a lack of familiarity with the aid programme and how the EU works”.
He also appeared to have softened his tone on the financial issue, saying he hoped funding would be found to allow the programme to take place at a later date. He also stressed the importance of environmental work in the north.
“I am very keen that this study trip will in the end go ahead,” he said.
But it was not only Rashbash’s temper that flared yesterday. A UBP source told the Mail Eroglu had been annoyed by Rashbash’s letter, firstly because it was addressed to ‘Mr Eroglu’, rather than ‘prime minister’, and secondly because of its “ugly tone”.
Regardless of the real reason behind the blocking of the programme, there is serious concern that the seven-month-old UBP administration is seeking to sour relations between Turkish Cypriots and the EU.
“They want to keep this thing [relations between the north and the EU] under their control. This is understandable if there is good will, but we’re not sure whether there is good will or whether they are trying to block projects,” head of the north’s Management Centre Bulent Kanol told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. The Management Centre is one of the main non-governmental links between the EU and other NGOs in the north.
Another source in the Turkish Cypriot administration told the Mail yesterday relations between Talat’s ‘presidential’ office and Eroglu’s offices were becoming “increasingly chaotic and tense” since the UBP took over. The UBP was seeking, the source said, to involve itself more closely in the ongoing reunification talks and relations with the EU.
“I think they [the UBP] have worries about EU aid and are looking for a mechanism on how to monitor and control it,” the source said.
The UBP’s desire to oversee such aid first emerged on April 8 when ‘foreign minister’ Huseyin Ozgurgun announced that all project applications would from then on have to pass through his department. He stipulated at the time, however, that such regulation would only apply to funds intended for public sector development, and not to funding for NGOs.
But Kanol says he is not entirely convinced the UBP will keep its word on this.
“He [Ozgurgun] said the regulation would not apply to NGOs, but recently the government has been circulating a draft associations law. They says it’s not final but we are deeply concerned about it,” Kanol said, adding that some of the articles in the draft were “very oppressive” and included the stipulation that NGOs would need the permission of the ‘foreign ministry’ if they wanted to form links with NGOs abroad.
Kanol called on the authorities in the north to take account of human rights and EU norms before finalising their new regulations. It was also important, he said, that any regulation of NGOs should be made “in consultation” with NGOs.
Late yesterday a UBP source told the Mail discussions were being held between the party and Rashbash in an effort to resolve the issue.
