DESPITE living separately for more than 30 years, it is quite astonishing how in some respects society has developed similarly, north and south of the dividing line. For instance, both sides have created an over-staffed and over-paid state sector, which is threatening to bring their respective economies crashing down.
But on neither side are the public servants and their unions prepared to give up a small part of their benefits to help public finances. A few weeks ago, the ‘state-owned’ Turkish Cyprus Airlines was grounded because it could not service its debts and Ankara was not willing to bail it out again. The airline’s staff unions had rejected the proposed pay cuts that could have saved the airline and ended up receiving no wages instead of slightly reduced wages. Now the airline is expected to be taken over by a private company, the priority of which would be to drastically cut costs.
Having learnt nothing from this experience, hundreds of Turkish Cypriots clashed with police on Monday as they demonstrated against what they see as Ankara’s plans to privatise public corporations, such as the electricity supplier, telecommunications services and the Eastern Mediterranean University. If these were profit-making organisations, nobody would have touched them, but Ankara is fed up of picking up the tab every year, while employees insist on big annual pay rises. Once they are privatised Ankara would limit its losses and the occupation regime would not have to deal with militant unions.
Public employees in the north are in a weaker position than their colleagues in the Republic, because their privileges are financed by large injections of Turkish money and their unions have no clout in Ankara. Protesting against National Unity Party’s austerity package is futile, even though Dervis Eroglu won April’s elections on the promise that he would not implement the package. Ankara has decided to cut its losses in Cyprus and public employees will have to foot the bill.
But if public utilities are privatised Turkish Cypriots would have even less control over what is happening in the north, as the buyers would be big companies from Turkey; the prospect of the direct trade regulation being approved would make the occupied north an even more attractive proposition.
The Turkish occupation army and Turkish business would be calling all the shots in the north and the Turkish Cypriots would have to grin and bear it. Neither their unions nor their political parties will have much clout in the new order that is developing, because they have happily been living beyond their means, secure in the knowledge that Turkey would be picking up the tab.
