Pax Europa

As the Finnish EU presidency struggles to thrash out a compromise between Turkey's refusal to open trade with Cyprus and the EU's embargo on the Turkish-occupied north of the island, the lastest to emerge is a Turkish offer of a tit-for-tat deal. Ercan airport and the port of Famagusta would open to EU trade as simultaneously Turkey would open a sea and airport of its own to Greek-Cypriot trade. Cyprus is likely to veto the deal, as its people vetoed the flawed reunification Annan Plan in a 2004 referendum. But larger EU powers should put pressure on Cyprus to accept and sign up themselves. The continued economic isolation of the north will only make eventual reunification that much more difficult as attitudes harden and wealth disparities widen even further, and the opening of trade with a large and increasingly rich neighbour can only be in the Greek-cypriot community's long-term interest. It is impossible to envisage a unilateral capitulation by either side; only negotiated concessions and compromise of the like proposed yesterday will ever solve this intractable dispute, and it is better for all parties to start on the path to a solution now, rather than wait first for the messy derailment of Turkey's EU bid.

Should compromise be reached and ultimately lead to reconciliation over the Turkish north, it would only be the most recent of manifold EU successes in employing the lube of its lucre to smooth intractable political conflict. The EU's trade and aid can prove to be a guarantor of stability in the western Meditteranean just as it is proving in the Balkans, and as it has long-since proved in western Europe. It is arguably the Communities' greatest achievement that one has to look back to the Romans to find a similarly prolonged period of peace in what is the most violent corner of the world in recorded human history. Turkey and Cyprus are unlikely to slip back into war, but without a little Cypriot reciprocation of Turkey's limited flexibilty relations are not going to normalise any time soon either. Cyprus' status as both party and judge in the dispute complicates the issue, but the money has to be on an eventual resolution to the cypriot question that is both inspired and underwritten by the EU.