DISY deputy Panayiotis Demetriou said yesterday that Cyprus would have a lot of fence mending to do in Europe following the Greek Cypriot side’s negative reaction to the final Annan plan.
Demetriou, who has just returned from Brussels after attending the joint meeting of the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Cypriot delegation had received a lukewarm reception from Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), who had once been sympathetic to the Greek Cypriot cause.
The rejection of the Annan plan was only partly responsible for the reaction of MEPs Demetriou said. He said many MEPs had questioned him about why Cyprus was represented at yesterday’s pre-donor’s conference in Brussels only at ambassadorial level and not by President Tassos Papadopoulos or other senior government officials. The Turkish Cypriot side was represented by ‘Prime Minister’ Mehmet Ali Talat.
“I could say that the reaction of our friends, MEPs, ranged from disappointment to anger,” Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail.
“A few friends of ours who worked very hard for the accession of Cyprus to the European Union expressed their disappointment at the developments in Cyprus because the majority of the Greek Cypriots seem to reject the solution. They don’t care whether the plan is called Annan or that it has certain negative elements. They believe that the plan was the product of a lot of work and many years of effort and that the Secretary-general, if he could do something better for either community, would have done so. That is their approach.”
Demetriou said that while the Greek Cypriot stance and the yesterday’s snub of the donor’s conference might not overtly affect the island’s accession on May 1, the attitude of European officials to Greek Cypriots would no longer be the same.
“That was obvious and we lived with that the two days we were there,” said Demetriou.
The inclination towards a ‘no’ by Greek Cypriots has been compounded by the fact that Papadopoulos last week called on the people to issue a ‘resounding no’ to the plan.
“Certain MEPs, who are knowledgeable on Cyprus, asked us in an ironic way who would be representing Cyprus at the donor’s conference. When I said it would be at the level of ambassador, they were not explicit in their response, but it was obvious what they meant,” Demetriou said.
“This is not something that will just pass unnoticed. It will be noted and I think they will make comments and will also adjust their stance on further steps for Cyprus based on our reactions (to the plan). We have to try and work to restore the friendly feelings we always felt when we met people who were traditional friends of Cyprus.”
