Our View: Government in a no win situation over EU sanctions on Turkey

Despite expectations cultivated by the government, nobody was surprised that any EU decision of punitive measures against Turkey and Turkish Cypriots regarding the opening of the fenced area of Varosha was postponed yet again. Although the decision on actions had been pushed back to December’s European Council, on Monday the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) decided to push it back yet again.

The reluctance to impose sanctions on Turkey by the big EU member-states has been obvious ever since the Cyprus government put punitive measures on the agenda two years ago, after Turkey’s repeated violations of the Cypriot EEZ. Some anodyne measures were imposed by the EU but the violations continued regardless, leaving Nicosia unsuccessfully arguing for more.

Sanctions were on the agenda again after the Turkish side carried out its threat to open the fenced area of Varosha but the European Commission was more concerned with pushing the EU-Turkey positive agenda. It was at this time the Commission came up with the ‘carrot and stick’ approach as a way of keeping its dialogue with Turkey on track while also giving Nicosia something to keep it happy.

This approach failed to yield the desired result but failure did not persuade our EU partners to apply the stick. At Monday’s FAC, Germany’s new Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock asked for time to study the document of options and its possible consequences as her government had only just taken over. Italy, reportedly, also sought more time to consider the document, which meant it would not be discussed at this week’s European Council.

Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides, who, reportedly, told the FAC meeting that failure to take decisions puts at risk the credibility of the EU, said on state radio on Tuesday that it was understandable that countries take decisions based on their national interest. Nobody would disagree with this assertion but it makes the raising of expectations by the government more difficult to understand. If it knew the interests of the powerful member-states would prevail on the issue of sanctions against Turkey why did it create the impression among the public that sanctions were a realistic possibility?

Having raised expectations, it now has to deal with the criticism of the political parties which are claiming the government had failed. It lacked a strategy and an assertive approach, said one party while another accused the government of cultivating delusions in the last few years. On the other hand, if the government had not tried to raise the ante at the EU it would have been accused of not fighting for the country’s interests by the parties.

The government was in a no-win situation from the beginning but by raising expectations in the way it did its failure would seem bigger than it really was.