Political equality in Cyprus is a more modest version of the EU’s

By Alper Ali Riza

The purpose of political equality in any Cyprus talks is to strike a fair balance between two rival but unequal communities condemned by history and geography to share a small island as a single nation state.

The UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar defined political equality in the context of a bicommunal, bizonal federation (BBF) in his report of March 8, 1990 that has been affirmed and adopted in all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions on Cyprus since then.

Political equality as defined by UNSG Perez de Cuellar means that both communities must approve the constitution of the federal republic; that political equality is not numerical equality but effective participation in all organs and decisions of the federal government; that there should be safeguards to ensure that the federal government does not have the power to adopt measures against the interests of one community; and that the constitutions of the two federated states should be identical.

When the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU as a divided country special provision had to be made in an additional Protocol 10 attached to its treaty of accession to suspend the European legal order in the Turkish controlled areas that were not under the control of the RoC.

In the preamble to Protocol 10, the EU and the RoC affirmed their commitment to a comprehensive settlement that has to be consistent with relevant UN Security Council resolutions. As they all call for political equality as defined by UNSG Perez de Cuellar, it is very important to a solution to the Cyprus problem.

There is no real problem with the need for both communities to approve the federal constitution, although the new Turkish Cypriot leader Erfan Erhurman would add equality of consequences to each community if they fail to approve the constitution. Thus, if the Turkish Cypriot community vote in favour of a settlement, it should not be left bereft of trade with the outside world if the Greek Cypriot community reject it.

On the other hand the effective participation of the smaller federated state of the Turkish Cypriots in the federation should not be at the expense of the effective functioning of the federal government. Hence the need for deadlock resolving mechanisms and safeguards to ensure the federal government could not adopt measures against the interests of one community.

Political equality is a cumbersome but necessary principle in federal and quasi federal systems because such states are often unequal, which is counter intuitive but true. In the EU political equality is achieved by the way its institutions are organised and its decisions and laws are made. The high incidence of political equality in the EU repays attention.

The EU’s supreme strategic body is the European Council. It consists of heads of state and heads of government and meets every six months to set the EU’s general political direction and priorities. It elects its president for two and a half years by qualified majority, but its decision-making is by consensus which amounts to full political equality regardless of size and wealth of member states.

Next there is the Council of the European Union (also known as the Council of Ministers). It consists of relevant ministers such as foreign, economic, financial, justice and home affairs. Its role is to implement and coordinate policy under the EU treaties and, jointly with the EU parliament, to exercise legislative and budgetary functions. 

It has a rotating presidency that is shared every six months by each of the states of the EU – lest we forget RoC holds and relishes the current presidency. 

The idea behind the rotating presidency is political equality. Rotation was specifically conceived to increase the influence of member states, irrespective of their size and population in order to strengthen the unity of the EU.

The EU presidency sets its own agenda and priorities and convenes and chairs meetings of all government ministers and can push its interests within the EU’s institutional constraints.

The European Commission (EC) is the EU’s executive arm of government headed by an elected president and a college of commissioners. Political equality in the EC is achieved by the appointment of a commissioner from each of the 27 member states.

As for the European Parliament, there is no upper legislative chamber in the EU like there is in the US where the equality of states is achieved in the senate and the electoral college. In the EU small states like Cyprus, Malta and Luxembourg have significantly more MEPs per citizen than larger states like Germany.

Last but not least is the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) which has a judge from each member state. Germany with a population of 84 million and Malta with half a million are politically equal in the number of judges they send to the seat of the CJEU in Luxembourg population.

The requirement of identical powers and functions of the two federated states is going to have to accommodate bizonality. In Cyprus, Protocol 10 anticipated the problem because in the event of a settlement the EU will decide on the adaptations to RoC’s terms of accession to the EU with regard to the Turkish Cypriot community after a settlement.

The great achievement of political equality in the EU is that it is not the sum of its parts but a free-standing supranational state in its own right with its own unique character. The ambition of political equality in Cyprus is a lot more modest: to keep the peace with the creation of a true Cypriot identity an incidental bonus.

My own view about political equality is that it is very important to get the election to the presidency right and that the American electoral college system adjusted to a federal Cyprus is the fairest and most democratic way with any chance of agreement.