A solution to the Cyprus conflict remains elusive, particularly since national elites use it to maintain their positions of power. Only moving the peace-related segment of Cyprus’s civil society away from the periphery will make a locally-accepted peace process viable.
A political settlement to the Cyprus dispute is no longer just a romantic fantasy; it may be the only way out of the country's current economic crisis.
Are the apocalyptic scenarios pervading the discourse of ‘surprise’ around the 'crisis' in Cyprus repositioning the sense of self of Cypriots vis-à-vis their institutions, the state, or the future ?
The justification for the ‘rescue’ plan for Cyprus appears reasonable: taxpayers should not have to pay for the costly mistakes of bankers and ‘tax havens’ should be eliminated. But the ‘bail-in’ plan does not achieve these objectives.
French and German overriding of the European Commission over the Stability Pact can be seen, ten years later, to have been disastrous. A vision more powerful, more engaging, more profound than “common interest” is now required if Europe is to survive, and divided Cyprus is a test case.
Cyprus' unique political culture, as well as its relationship with Russia, played an important yet underappreciated role in the island's recent economic crisis.
The 2004 Annan Plan to re-unite the island failed spectacularly; but within the current economic crisis there is room for reconciliation in Cyprus.
Harsh measures imposed on Cypriot political and financial authorities to address bank failures reveal, once again, that the entire architecture of the EU is in tatters. The geopolitics surrounding the Greek Cypriot crisis is pulling the EU further apart and into the unknown.
EU accession in 2004 did little if anything to make runaway bankers accountable; on the contrary, the so-called institutional ‘independence’ of the Central Bank making the Governor accountable to the ECB rather than having any democratic accountability to the people who would be immediately affect
