By Bejay Browne

THE CYPRUS autism association has received a boost following the delivery of a new mini bus made possible by a substantial donation from the Limassol-based Dashin foundation.

Andrey and Julia Dashin’s Foundation granted a cheque for €15,000, which meant the association could purchase a new 8-seater Nissan NV200. After recently taking delivery, the association was then able to relocate their old, smaller bus to the autistic centre in Paphos, which had been without transport for more than six months.

“Raising awareness about autism and also making the centres more accessible to parents with autistic children will help improve our work, which is to provide special education and care for persons suffering from autism,” said Tasoula Georgiadou, president of the Cyprus Autism Association.

The association has established specialised centres in Limassol, Paphos and Nicosia that cater to rehabilitation, education, health, employment and protection for autistic children and adults.

In the future, the association aims to create a centre with diagnostic programmes, treatment and residential care, where people with autism can live with a sense of independence and dignity.

The Limassol centre currently provides care for nine adults and 33 children. It offers a daily educational development programme taught by specialised staff. The pupils are collected by staff members and brought to the centre to study.

Once a week, the centre also takes the students for a day out either in town or the countryside to aid social education.

A spokesperson for the Dashin foundation said: “There are a growing number of pupils using these facilities and that is why it was so important to acquire a second, larger, modern mini-bus for the centre. We were happy to be able to help.”

The Paphos branch of the association has benefited from being given the minibus previously serving Limassol, as it had been without transport for more than six months.

“We used to have a bus but it was old and broke down on a daily basis. It was dangerous, so we had to stop using it. The pupils were stuck at the centre and it was boring for them,” said the principal of the Paphos centre Marina Fylaktou. “Now we are able to go to the seaside, the mall, restaurants, shopping and so on. Being out and about helps them so much.”

The Paphos branch currently offers classes and daily activities for four adults and four young children. Fylaktou says she is hoping that this number will grow and that they are hoping to attract more parents.

“People with autism are not able to express themselves with other people. So it’s important that we teach social skills and how to interact with others.”

According to the association, autism is the most rapidly developing disorder in the world and affects around one in sixty people; there is no known cause or medial cure.

For more information visit www.autismsociety.org.cy or call Paphos centre director Marina Fylaktou on 26 221346 or paphos@autismsociety.org.cy

By Staff Reporter

THE ambitious oil storage terminal project at Vasiliko should be completed very soon, with the first shipments expected soon after, company officials told a visiting delegation of the ruling Democratic Rally (DISY) party, headed by its president Averof Neophytou yesterday.

The party leader said the oil storage terminal facilities of VTT Vasiliko Ltd (VTTV) “is one of the largest investment in Cyprus today and a good solution for the transfer of oil stocks currently stored in Larnaca.”

He also expressed his belief that with the increase of competition when the terminal begins operations, fuel costs will be reduced.

He was accompanied by House Trade committee chairman Lefteris Chrystoforou, MPs Andreas Michaelides, Zacharias Zachariou, Efthymios Diplaros and other party executives. The visit was concluded with a tour at the jetty of the terminal on one of the company’s cutting-edge tug boats that will be used to tow tank vessels.

George Papanastasiou, CEO of VTTV, said that the construction phase will be completed soon and the operations phase will begin shortly with the arrival of the first tank vessel.

The project, that VTVV says will make Cyprus an oil product trading hub for international markets and will generate multiple benefits for the country’s economy, includes an oil storage terminal with 28 tanks of 544,000 cubic metres capacity and a jetty that will service over 500 tank vessels per year.

VTTV is a subsidiary of VTTI, a joint venture of the Dutch energy giant Vitol and MISC, a major shipping company owned by the Malaysian state oil company Petronas.

By George Psyllides

CYPRUS boasts 33,000 neighbourhood watchers, Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou said yesterday, which contributed in curbing crime by up to 40 per cent.

Speaking before an assembly of representatives of Limassol’s 108 communities, Nicolaou emphasised the government’s determination to invest in community policing as a means of bolstering the sense of security of all people without exception.

“Today we have around 33,000 neighbourhood watchers and we cover areas inhabited by 630,000 people,” the minister said, adding that the objective was to cover the whole populace.

“We believe that this cooperation is the most important link in creating a safety network for local society,” he said.
Nicolaou said the neighbourhoods implementing the measure had curbed crime between 30 and 40 per cent.

The ministry was also in the process of upgrading the current alarm system that will enable people to link their properties directly with the police for a small fee.

The system will be upgraded to take 2,000 calls an hour and as long as the response time would prevent someone from stealing, “we believe this system will work as a deterrent to the point that these properties will be avoided.”

By Evie Andreou

A NEW non-surgical method, which is considered to be the only effective treatment for mitral regurgitation, a condition where the heart’s mitral valve doesn’t close tightly, allowing blood to flow backward in the heart, has been successfully applied for the first time in Cyprus, by a group of cardiac surgeons of the American Medical Centre/American Heart Institute.

The MitraClip Percutaneous Mitral Valve Repair procedure brings good news to high risk patients who can now avoid open heart surgery and the risks it entails.

During the procedure, one or more clips are inserted by catheter through the leg. The clips decrease regurgitating blood by decreasing the mitral valve’s opening.

The benefits of the procedure are low pre-operative mortality, short hospitalisation period of only 48 hours, an essential increase of the regurgitation level and decrease of symptoms. Furthermore, a decrease has been recorded in re-admissions of patients that undergo the procedure and statistics show increase in the survival percentage of patients with advanced heart failure/insufficiency.

Mitral regurgitation is the most frequent valve disease and in its severe form can cause hart failure symptoms like easy fatigue, dyspnoea in natural fatigue up to acute pulmonary oedema and predisposes the development of heart arrhythmias and strokes.

By Evie Andreou

FUEL companies have announced the second price reduction in a month, following a furore last week over high prices.

The companies announced this week that they were able to further cut prices at the pump as they had received new shipments bought at lower prices.

The retail price of 95-octane was lowered by 2.4 cents a litre dropping to €1.36, 98-octane by 2 cents to €1.39 and heating fuel was reduced by 3.2 cents a litre to €0.94. No reduction has been announced for diesel.

Despite this second reduction, the Consumers and Quality of Life Union (CQLU) said was not satisfied and said that prices should be even lower.

The consumer group’s chairman Loucas Aristodemou said that according to the Auditor general’s 2012 report, the formula with which the fuel price is set, is wrong.

Last week, the group threatened to sue the government for allowing fuel companies to charge high prices in order to collect more taxes.
Energy minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis had said that his ministry officials would meet with the Auditor general to discuss the matter.

Upon the announcement of the latest fuel price reduction he said he expected that Cyprus will be aligned with the total reduction in the international market as more shipments come in.

The minister had admitted earlier in the week that there is lack of healthy competition both in wholesale and retail fuel markets and proposed a series of measures that would help maintain fair prices, such as the increase of storage space for wholesale to attract new importers and the improvement of transparency toward consumers.

By George Psyllides

THE finance ministry yesterday handed parties the drafts of three bills concerning the insolvency framework, seen as providing an extra ‘safety net’ to debtors who have fallen on hard times.

The framework will be made up of six bills.

The ministry has asked party experts to a meeting on October 31 to discuss the drafts, just as the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a verdict on the validity of the foreclosures bill demanded by the troika of international lenders.

The Cyprus News Agency said the drafts concern the liquidation procedure, debt restructuring of viable businesses, and administration.

All parliamentary parties apart from AKEL have appointed one member to join a team of technocrats drafting the insolvency framework.

AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou said at the time that the party would not be taking part because its participation “will not serve anything since, unfortunately, there is no political basis to base the technocrats’ cooperation.”

By Angelos Anastasiou

THE Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) must change its structures and processes in order to meet modern standards and requirements, according to a KPMG report on restructuring and reorganising the organisation presented to staff yesterday.

Speaking after the event, CTO head Marios Hannides said the organisation needs to modernise its decision-making processes and their implementation, as well as improve efficiency in terms of public service.

Hannides said the Auditor General’s recommendations concerning the organisation have been considered and led to specific decisions which are already being implemented along with “more general steps in the right direction.”

Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides had recently revealed irregularities in the operation of the CTO, including promotion contracts being assigned without inviting tenders, and urged the Tourism minister to involve himself in efforts to remedy the distortions observed.

Per KPMG’s recommendation, the CTO has performed a mass personnel movement across departments, in order to best exploit existing talent.

“Personnel mobility brings a breath of fresh air to the organisation, and the employees who have assumed their new posts as of yesterday [Thursday] will be able to guide the organisation into a new path, where it will be able to operate better, both for tourism and the economy,” said Hannides.

Beyond personnel changes, he added, procedures are being updated and modernised in order to meet current EU and state standards.

In terms of personnel allowances, the CTO boss said this was also included in the Auditor General’s report, but concerns the public service at large, noting that the same procedures were followed at the Foreign Affairs ministry, as well as other government departments.

He explained that what had been perceived as a problem at the CTO was the fact that local personnel operating out of other countries – Italy, England, Russia, and others – are on private-law contracts with the organisation, which are governed by host-country law.

“These cases are being examined with the organisation’s legal advisers so that a balance can be struck, where Cyprus regulations are enforced while respecting host-country laws,” he said.

Meanwhile, with regard to tourism prospects in the coming year, Hannides said that the Russian market presents “possible difficulties due to the Russian government’s VAT policy, as well as the unprecedented devaluation of the rouble against the euro.”

“There is no official estimate projecting any fall in tourism from Russia,” he said. “What we have is calculations by the CTO and tourism bodies in Cyprus, which indicate that the measures taken by the Russian government may bring a decrease in the Russian tourist current.”

Hannides noted that both the CTO and the Tourism minister recently met with Russian tourist agencies in order to be able to offer incentive schemes to travel agents, which could curtail the possible decline in arrivals from Russia.

But, he said, measures are being taken in case Russian tourism follows a negative trend.

“Parallel to supporting the British and Russian markets, we are also moving to alternatives like the cooperation with large German tourist agencies to develop the German market, as well as the Scandinavian countries which have supported our economy for a decade after the Turkish invasion,” Hannides said.

The CTO head said that the prospects of cooperation with Arab countries are favourable due to the organisation’s efforts in recent years to establish flights from Arab countries to Cyprus.

DEPUTIES felt snubbed by the Attorney-General, Kostas Clerides, after he decided not to attend a meeting of the House ethics committee that was discussing an issue of conflict of interest, involving the Governor of the Central Bank, Chrystalla Georghadji. Clerides had sent the committee a letter in which he said that the issue “does not fall within the remit of the attorney-general nor did it necessitate the attorney-general to express an opinion or intervene in any way.”

It is difficult to disagree with Clerides because the issue is ethical rather than legal and it is not his job to make pronouncements on ethical issues. Then again, why had he issued a statement about the matter when it was first raised, last month, by Kathimerini newspaper, which claimed it had uncovered a blatant case of conflict of interest? Was it within his remit to issue a statement back then, saying that “it was expected that state officials would exercise their duties and powers, fully detached from such elements, in an independent, objective and fair way”?

It was not, but he did it anyway because he had been put under pressure by the newspaper and wanted to offer the governor some backing. The paper had reported that Georghadji’s daughter was working at her father’s law office (Mr and Mrs Georghdji have been separated for some time) which was representing Andreas Vgenopoulos, the former Laiki strongman, in a law-suit filed against him by the administrator of Laiki. The administrator of the bank is answerable to the Governor.

There is no doubt that there is a conflict of interest, but the worst of all was that Geroghadji was aware there may have been a problem, which was why she changed the provisions of her contract before taking the post of governor. The original contract included a provision barring blood relatives of the governor from being involved in any business or profession that had any connection or dealing with the Central Bank. Georghadji asked for this provision to be removed from her contract and the Attorney-General’s office obliged.

In this way, Georghadji was not violating her contract if her daughter carried on representing Vgenopoulos in his legal battle with the Laiki administrator and the Attorney-General had no business getting involved in the matter. And when the Laiki administrator was recently replaced by the Central Bank – the governor’s family ties may have had nothing to do with the decision – questions were bound to be raised, because of the position Georghadji has put herself in.

The facts of the case conclusively documented the conflict of interest. Did the deputies, who feel duty-bound to take moral stands on the most trivial issues, really need the Attorney-General’s advice to decide whether Georghadji is in the wrong?

By Evie Andreou

THE absence of a black box and a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from the aircraft that crashed into the sea between Cyprus and Lebanon on Wednesday killing both people on board, makes the investigation into the accident more difficult, the senior investigator into the case said yesterday.

Yiannakis Loizou, head of the Air Accident Incident Investigation Board (AAIIB) said his team is searching the causes of the crash of the twin-prop Diamond DA42 on Wednesday night en route to Beirut causing the death of Cypriot pilot Avgoustinos Avgousti, 54, and Lebanese businessman and trainee pilot George Obaji, 47.

It will not be an easy task, however, since from the aircraft’s collected debris its two engines and the cockpit are missing.

“At this point we cannot draw any conclusions for the simple reason that essential parts are missing, like the engines and the cockpit of the aircraft. We only have the tail and some pieces of the fuselage,” Loizou told CyBC radio.

He added that the remaining pieces of the aircraft lay at the sea bed at 2,000 meters depth and that their collection is impossible without a seep-sea submersible and a special robot.

He also said that there is need to find more pieces of the debris.

“A start, of course, is also the discussion with the control tower but it doesn’t help shed light since when he (the pilot) mentioned a small problem, he didn’t say what the problem was,” Loizou said.

He added that the state of the collected debris indicate that there was a violent impact in the sea.

“Liquid does not compress so it is worse than granite that’s why the aircraft was shattered to small pieces. The biggest piece is the tail of around 1.5 metres,” Loizou said.

At noon, the defence ministry announced the conclusion of the search and rescue mission that begun on Wednesday when the aircraft disappeared from the radar of the Nicosia flight information region (FIR) at 7.04pm, some 80 kilometres south east of Larnaca.

“This outcome, regardless of its tragic nature, is due to the rapid response of the Cyprus authorities under the coordination of the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) of the Republic, which was immediately mobilised, according to the national SAR plan ‘NEARCHOS’, after being notified that the trace of the aircraft was lost,” the ministry said in a written statement.

It added that the port and naval police and the National Guard mobilised at sea and in the air to carry out a coordinated search which traced the point of impact.

The aircraft took off from Paphos airport at 6.20pm and reports suggested the plane, belonging to Avgousti’s pilot training school, started circling over Akrotiri at an altitude of 9,000 feet.

The last communication with the control tower was when at about 40 nautical miles outside Larnaca the aircraft was authorised to plot a new route, which the pilot confirmed.

A while later the traffic controller contacted the pilot again to ask why he did not head in the direction agreed, to which the pilot replied that he was now heading there and that he was encountering a small problem he was trying to fix.

The controller came back saying “if you have any problems we are here to help.” The pilot then responded something along the lines, “Ok, no problem.” That was the last communication with the tower control.

Loizou said on Thursday that the tower control next heard sounds coming from the plane and tried to contact the pilot as did other aircraft in the area, but without any success.

The debris, which were taken to a location near Larnaca airport for the AAIIB to begin its investigation, were located some 45 nautical miles south-east of Larnaca, as well as the bodies of the two men.

Defence Minister Christophoros Fokaides said yesterday that there was no evidence to suggest interference from Turkish warships which were not near at the time of the accident.

He reiterated that during the search and rescue operation, there was no communication between the Larnaca Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) and the Turkish ships that rushed to the area where the aircraft fell. He added that when the realised that the operation was headed by the JRCC they left.

The Mediterranean Institute of Flight Safety urged everyone to wait for the results and refrain from commenting on airplane accidents while the investigation is underway for ethical reasons and respect for the victims’ families.

“We observe that many comments are made about the accident of the small aircraft off the coast of Cyprus, most of which are just speculation and not serious, since no one knows the exact details,” the announcement said.

By Eric M. Johnson and Victoria Cavaliere

A student shot dead a female classmate and wounded four others when he opened fire in the cafeteria of his Washington state high school on Friday, apparently after a fight with fellow students, officials said.

The shooter, a homecoming prince at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, took his own life as his classmates scrambled to safety in the latest outburst of deadly violence at an American school.

A school district official, who declined to be named, said the shooter was Jaylen Fryberg, a freshman described by classmates and parents as a popular member of both the wrestling and football teams.

“He came up from behind and had a gun in his hand and he fired about eight bullets … They were his friends so it wasn’t just random,” student Jordan Luton told CNN, adding that the gunman fired several more shots.

“Then he turned and looked at me and my girlfriend … and kind of gave us a smirk and turned around and then shot more bullets outside,” Luton said.

Police would not confirm the gunman’s identity or discuss possible motives for the shooting, but the school district official and several witnesses said he had been previously involved in a fight with another student.

Rebecca Cooley, whose son played sports with Fryberg and was approaching the cafeteria when the shooting erupted, said an altercation broke out on an athletic field following football practice in recent days and that one boy involved was among those shot.

Students who knew Fryberg described him as outgoing and unlike the loner personality that is often associated with school shootings.

“He seemed totally normal,” said Gladis Jimenez, 15. “Yes, he had a lot of friends.”

There were no indications on Fryberg’s social media accounts that he had been planning such a rampage, but on Tuesday he posted his feelings of despondency, apparently over a romantic split, on Twitter.

“It breaks me… It actually does… I know it seems like I’m sweating it off… But I’m not.. And I never will be able to,” he wrote.

All of the victims of the shooting were under 18, and three of the wounded were in critical condition with gunshot wounds to the head, said Joanne Roberts, chief of medicine at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett. The fourth wounded victim suffered less serious injuries.

Two of the wounded were boys and two were girls, hospital officials said.

The boys, 15-year-old Andrew Fryberg, shot in the head, and 14-year-old Nate Hatch, shot in the jaw, were both in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, a spokeswoman said.

Local media reported the boys were cousins of the shooter.

MOTIVE UNCLEAR

The violence at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, some 30 miles (48 km) north of Seattle, marked the latest in a series of deadly shooting rampages at American schools that have played a central role in a national debate over gun laws.

In 2012, a 20-year-old gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children and six adults before taking his own life in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

At Marysville’s The Grove Church, hundreds of parents, students and community members overflowed aisles during a vigil on Friday evening, holding flowers and crying audibly throughout a prayer service.

Outside the vigil, 9th grader Bella Panjeli said she attended a different school but was friends with one of the female victims, calling her “a beautiful girl and so, so sweet.”

She also said Fryberg was in an ongoing dispute with his cousin over the victim’s affections.

“I heard he asked her out and she rebuffed him and was with his cousin,” Panjeli said, adding that she learned of the connection after talking to the victim’s family and friends. “It was a fight over a girl.”

Police would not say what kind of weapon Fryberg, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, had used. U.S. media reported the weapon was a .40-caliber Beretta handgun.

A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told reporters the gun had been legally acquired.

Local television stations showed images of students running from buildings and crossing a field with their hands up as officers with rifles ran across the schoolyard. The students were taken to a nearby church by bus.

“I heard these two big noises, and I see kids running and they looked so scared. Then the fire alarm went off and we thought it was a fire,” Jimenez, a 10th-grader who was in class during the shooting, told Reuters.

By Hermes Solomon

WHEN SAVVAS Vergas, mayor of Paphos was arrested ten days ago, he arrived at the police station in an unmarked, mid-range saloon car, loosely accompanied by two plain clothes officers and no handcuffs.

He was wearing a cream coloured pair of slacks – tight about the crotch and down the inside leg – belted around a full tummy topped by an open neck shirt.

Lately seen unshaven with periorbital dark circles under his eyes, I cannot confirm whether he was sporting a Rolex at the time of his arrest, but nonchalant he strolled in, resembling a lifetime worn-out playboy of the west of Cyprus. It was unlike his presumed partner in the Aristo Affair, Theodoros Aristodemou, who was taken in for questioning several weeks earlier, held for ten days then discharged looking dapper, bedecked in a smart suit, spotless white shirt and quiet necktie.

They say dress maketh the man, and if I had to pronounce on a man’s guilt prior to judgement and based solely on his appearance, I know who I would choose.

Thorough in-depth investigations into both of the men’s bank accounts – as many as they certainly have – could highlight ‘inexplicable goings-on’ in a society bred to ‘con’ all-comers.

Cyprus has changed hands many times throughout its long history, including a 300 years long Ottoman ‘return of favours in kind’ society – notably, you pat my back and I’ll pat yours.

Of course, colonial powers are no better in their manner of conducting business than we are, but they have, over the centuries, perfected intrigue, embezzlement, corruption and cronyism. Today’s Brussels is the equivalent of ‘Constantinople’s late 19th century harem of political whores’, which incited the rise to power of Kemal Ataturk.

We are beginners when it comes to corruption. And if thorough in-depth investigations of the 50 richest Cypriot bank accounts (now that ‘exchange of information’ exists throughout all EU banks) were to be undertaken, indictments much worse than those of former CBC chief, Christodoulos Christodoulou, Savvas Vergas and Theodoros Aristodemou would be rife.

When we cried foul play recently over a DNA report as to our origins (less Greek and more Persian/Hungarian in our blood than we were prepared to accept) our manner of dress and general comportment was not taken into account. But it should have been.

The smart suit, white shirt and quiet necktie brigade have been ruling this republic with fixed smiles ever since its inception. Few are truly cultured, highly cultivated or well-educated. None are born of blue blood – there is no upper class in Cyprus other than our self-proclaimed ‘elite’. We are all undeniably one and the same – descendants of peasant stock – the black bread, cheese and olives brigade!

Hiding incompetence behind formal dress and a smiling persona fools most of the people most of the time – it takes a gentleman to spot another – thus nobody dare be seen in public wearing jeans and a sweat shirt.

When I inquired of a top civil servant as to the reason behind ‘smart’ dress sense and clone-like comportment, he said in all seriousness that it displayed respect for his job, other citizens and the country.

The reform of public administration – designed to maximise efficiency and generate savings – is an obligation stemming from Cyprus’ bailout agreement; solutions must be ready by January 2015.

That same civil servant told me that improvements in the running of all departments are sorely needed, but meetings between union leaders and officials responsible for the reorganisation must be held to the exclusion of politicians; this paramount to successful integration of reform and the only way forward.

“The public service has bumbled along since 1960 and works reasonably well,” he said. “But if you think it’s a bit of mess now, just wait until we try to implement new procedures after politicians have stuck their noses in. If anything, the House of Reps should first put its own house in order.”

Oh, what a tangled web impossible to ‘un-weave’ should investigations ever reach into the depths of distortion accepted as ‘normal business practice’ on this island of the smiling smartly dressed. And that’s the reason why our judiciary dare not delve too deeply into the very ‘crotch’ of corruption!

On taking office last year, Chinese Premier, Li Jin Ping promised to rid the country of corrupt officials and has since imprisoned over ten thousand found guilty of a variety of offences. One of the accused, stripped of his assets and the right to a hospital bed, threw himself to his death from a high-rise rather than face dishonour followed by a long prison term.

President Anastassiades has also promised in-depth investigations into corrupt practices yet, after a year and a half of pointless judicial pandering, just a few scapegoats have been charged with ‘minor offences’ in the hope of calming a rising rabble of discontent among ordinary citizens.

If China can find over ten thousand government officials guilty of corruption, Cyprus can surely find half a dozen – although we all know the true number to be much higher.

The Vergas/Aristodemou (public official and businessman) plot thickens and will highlight many similar cases of ‘back patting’. But will the judiciary or troika take note and force a rout of establishment ‘crooks’? I doubt it…

By Gustave Feissel

WITH THE appointment of a new special advisor of the UN secretary-general on Cyprus and the recent fiftieth anniversary of the presence of the United Nations in Cyprus it would be timely to consider how best to move the negotiating process forward in a manner most likely to succeed.

Over the past 50 years, spanning six secretaries-general, some 20 United Nations representatives, 17 force commanders, enumerable attempts to work out an agreement, and countless optimistic joint statements, most recently those of February 11, and of September 17, 2014, the fact remains that no solution is in sight.

The issues that make up the Cyprus problem, namely governance and power-sharing, territory, property, security and guarantees, including foreign troops, and settlers or immigrants from Turkey, have been addressed countless times based on the basic principles in the 1977 and 1979 High Level Agreements.  However, the two sides have never been able to agree on the definition of these High Level Agreements.  Their positions have remained far apart, and no progress has been made toward a common understanding.

Since 1974 and to a large extent since 1963, the two communities have lived apart, have governed themselves, and have had little contact with each other. They have grown comfortable with this arrangement. Over the years they have drawn further apart, with decreasing knowledge of and interest in each other.

This is evident in the disappointing and decreasing flow of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots across the green line since the resumption in 2003 of the traffic across the buffer zone. A leading Greek Cypriot personality reminded me some time ago of a significant truism which should not be lost sight of. He pointed out that the current period is the very first time in the entire history of Cyprus that the Greek Cypriots have lived by themselves and have governed themselves.  While this fact is not widely recalled in the Greek Cypriot community, it is nonetheless significant. After living alone in a house and then having to share it, even if the house is now bigger, arrangements for joint habitation must be worked out with care.  It stands to reasons that these changes need to be taken into account when considering the governance and power-sharing best suited for a federal Cyprus.

In addition to their quasi independence over these many years, their historic relationship has been marked by mutual distrust, no tradition of cooperation and compromise, and the absence of a sense of Cypriot nationhood.

After all this time of failed efforts, negotiators should take a hard look at the realities on the ground and consider their impact on a settlement. This is particularly relevant as concerns governance and power-sharing in a federal Cyprus. For 37 years negotiations have proceeded as if the situation in Cyprus had remained unchanged.  However the situation on the ground has changed dramatically. The state of affairs in both communities is very different from what it was before 1974. The time has come to adjust the negotiation process to reflect the existing realities.

Both sides need to recognise that the status quo is untenable and that the passage of time will make an agreement more difficult and eventually unachievable. The demographic changes will further undermine the process to the detriment of both communities. Neither community’s “preferred solution” is a feasible option. The only option is a settlement which, in the words of President Makarios, is achievable. That admonition is most pertinent. To continue the process as heretofore will have the predictable outcome. Both sides need to adjust their positions, and move away from the desirable to the achievable.

In order to avoid yet another failed negotiation, the process should begin with a deep introspection on the current situation. An objective assessment should be made of the current political life in each community and its impact on the structure of an achievable federal Cyprus. The federal functions of governance and power-sharing should focus on the essentials needed at the federal level for an effective government within the European Union. This would make it easier for the two sides to get used to working together, minimise frustrations, increase mutual trust, and avoid a dramatic change in the way the two sides run their internal affairs.

The time has come to turn the page, adopt a new approach, look to the future rather than the past, avoid mutual recrimination, and work out an achievable settlement. Or to put it another way, negotiations must discard the past, recognise the present, and develop a firm foundation for a common future.  Nothing less will do.

Gustave Feissel, retired United Nations assistant secretary-general, was chief of mission of the United Nations operations in Cyprus 1993-1998

By Loucas Charalambous

THERE is one big truth which our political wizards pretend not to see. It was written in this column a few months ago. If we do not find a way to solve the Cyprus problem – in other words if we do not reach some deal with Turkey – Turkey will never back off with regard to the hydrocarbons.

And I doubt we would be able to extract even a pot of natural gas or oil from the bottom of the sea whilst in confrontation with Turkey. Our politicians should not forget their own huge responsibilities for our current impasse. In the last 12 years, since Tassos Papadopoulos became president, we have managed to convince the whole world that it is our side which is not interested in a settlement.

We proved it with the rejection of the Annan plan in 2004 and with all our subsequent actions which centre on the absurd ‘no to suffocating time-frames’ slogan that has only one aim – maintaining the status quo. They do not have the guts to say that they prefer partition and that the two-state solution proposed by Turkish PM Ahmed Davutoglu would solve the problem as it is perfectly compatible with their political agenda.

It is therefore no accident that President Anastasiades is finding it so difficult to convince the outside world that Turkey does not want a settlement. The ‘patriotic’ hysteria triggered by Anastasiades’ decision to quit the talks, could lead our economy in new, unpleasant directions.

One hears the argument of our political dwarves, that we should take measures that ‘would incur a political cost for Turkey’ and we do not know whether to laugh or cry. We continue to show a complete lack of awareness of our size. We try to act like lions when everyone can see that we are mosquitoes.

“Cyprus does not feel it is in a position of weakness in relation to Turkey as regards the prospect of taking counter-measures in response to her provocations,” declared government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides triumphantly. Neither he nor the DISY chief – who has joined the camp of ‘Turk-destroyers’ along with the rest of our political wizards – can explain what price we are capable of exacting on Turkey.

The worst thing is that none of these politicians seem remotely interested in the real cost that Turkey could impose on us if we carry on with this ill-advised confrontation. Here is just one example: the only thing that has survived the collapse of the economy is the tourism industry, which according to official data has seen revenue rising for the third consecutive year in 2014. Revenue is expected to reach €2.2 billion for the sector from which 40,000 families make their living.

I was talking the other day with a man who runs a business in the sector and employs 120 people. I asked him what the prospects were for the next tourist season and he said: “At this moment, bookings for next year are even higher than this year. I have to mention that this applies as we talk, but tomorrow it might not. Barbaros could turn everything upside down.”

Has this occurred to Anastasiades, Averof, Papadopoulos and the rest of our belligerent politicians? Has it occurred to them that if Turkey decided to inflict a cost on us, she has the power to sink us, destroying the only real source of income we have left? Do they realise that by playing with matches they could start a new fire that would destroy whatever was left standing after the bankruptcy to which they led us?

Instead of stupidly talking about the cost they will supposedly inflict on Turkey, would it not be better for them to consider the devastating price our country will pay for their stupidities?

By Elias Hazou

A consumer advocacy group caused a stir recently when it accused the state and fuel companies of complicity in keeping fuel pump prices high, which ostensibly enables the government to collect more in taxes and greedy corporations to rake in the profits.

Loukas Aristodemou, head of the Consumers and Quality of Life Union (CQLU) pointed to the perennially high prices in Cyprus despite a sharp decline in crude prices over the last months. The insinuation was clear: if free market conditions did exist, companies would have an incentive to bring down their prices to out-compete one another. The fact they do not must mean companies do not mind keeping prices up because either way their market share is guaranteed, i.e. there is collusion.

Since June global benchmark Brent has lost more than 28 per cent. The CQLU argued that pump prices here should therefore be 12 to 15 cents lower. A couple of days later, fuel companies announced price reductions of 2.3 cents a litre for petrol and 2.7 cents for diesel. Aristodemou countered that this was nowhere near enough, saying the price drop was a bone thrown to consumers to hush up the issue.

The consumer protection group is meanwhile mulling suing the government.

For their part, fuel companies claimed that high prices were due to losses on the euro-dollar exchange rate, offsetting any gains from buying oil at a lower price. Energy minister Giorgos Lakkotripis quickly weighed in, adopting this position.

It was a rather flimsy argument: whereas Brent fell 28 per cent since June, the euro lost just 5 per cent to the dollar in the same period.

Giorgos Petrou, manager of Star Oil, offered another reason for the apparent disconnect: companies, he said, buy refined fuel and don’t deal in crude oil, so one shouldn’t expect a 1:1 parity between fluctuations in Brent and gasoline pump prices.

This was a more plausible explanation than the flawed exchange rate hypothesis, but it left one question unaddressed: all other costs of importers (purchase of refined products plus freight costs) being more or less equal, logically crude oil variations should be the key factor affecting prices at the nozzle.

Mid-week, unleaded 95 petrol in Nicosia dropped further to €1.36 per litre. According to the commerce ministry’s retail price watch, the average price island-wide on October 3 was €1.413. A month earlier (September 5) the average price in Nicosia was €1.422. Working with these numbers yields a rough price drop from early September to present day of 6 cents per litre.

It’s not much. But a look at retail prices across Europe reveals a can of mixed beans. According to one website, (www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/Europe/), average gasoline prices in Malta in the period spanning July 14 to October 20 flat-lined, the Czech Republic’s dropped just 1 cent and Austria’s by 2 cents. In the same period, prices in Cyprus fell by 3 cents. These are evidently not fully updated numbers, but are useful for comparison purposes.

At the other end of the scale, Switzerland’s prices went down 5 cents, the UK likewise 5 cents, Greece down 7 cents, and Norway (Europe’s largest oil producer, and with the most expensive gasoline) by 9 cents. Spain’s were down 13 cents, and Luxembourg’s 14 cents. The prices include taxes.

The data does indicate that Cyprus prices are less elastic when crude oil is on the slide.

According to official EU statistics, without tax and duties the price of unleaded petrol here was stuck at 69 cents a litre from end-2013 to June 2014. Unleaded in Cyprus was the fourth most expensive in the EU-28, and diesel was the third costliest. By comparison, unleaded went for 71 cents in Malta and 70.2 cents in Bulgaria. The average EU-28 price was 64.5 cents.

On January 1 2014 the excise tax on fuel in Cyprus was jacked up by 5 cents per litre. Excise duties on fuel now are 49 cents per litre, on top of which 19 per cent VAT is then added.

Industry sources, who asked not to be named, dismissed the notion that the government and oil companies are in cahoots to keep gasoline expensive.

The sources said the excise duty levied by the government is not tied to sales or consumption. Rather, the excise is pre-paid at customs at the point of delivery – the bonded warehouses or tank farms in Larnaca where shipments arrive.

Oil importers here (some of whom are also in the retail business) bring in a new shipment roughly once every 10 days. It’s understood that Petrolina imports fuel from a refinery in Haifa, Israel, while EKO gets its products from a facility in Greece.

“You can’t compare apples to oranges,” the sources told the Sunday Mail.

“Brent is priced in dollars per barrel, whereas companies buy fuel in tonnes and then sell it on the market for a price per litre. There are lots of stages involved between crude oil and the refined fuel at your local gas station.”

As to the similarity between different companies’ prices, which may point to collusion, the same sources attributed this instead to the small size of the market as well as the size of the island.

As far as any single company is concerned, transporting the fuel from the tank farms in Larnaca to Paphos should logically cost more than taking them to, say, Nicosia. But because the distances are not that much greater, a company decides to price different districts similarly.

Likewise, regarding competition between the different companies, the same sources said that similar operating costs as well as the small size of the market almost inevitably lead to like prices.

“This talk of a supposed cartel in Cyprus…it’s like flogging a dead horse, it’s been on-off for years now,” they added.

Nevertheless, back in 2009 the Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC) did find that fuel companies were engaging in price collusion and unfair trade practices. The then Competition Commissioner Costakis Christoforou slapped a €43m fine on the companies. However the probe’s findings – and the fine – never stuck because the corporations took the case to the Supreme Court, where they succeeded in quashing the probe on a technicality: they argued that Christoforou didn’t meet the necessary qualifications to head the CPC.

It’s understood however that, while shelved, the same CPC report is not null and void. Current CPC head Loukia Christodoulou told the Mail that the probe “is ongoing, it is open.”

But she declined to say whether or when the CPC plans to follow up on the matter.

It’s also interesting that, ever since the 2009 CPC report, fuel companies have been apparently advised by their lawyers to not go on record with the media on matters pertaining to alleged price collusion.

Until and unless authorities step up and investigate, the question of collusion will be dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

COMRADE Tof, who heroically refuses to stay out of the limelight for too long, has made a few public appearances this month, in Kyproulla and Mother Russia, reminding us how boring and uninspiring political life has been without him around.

A couple of weeks ago he was a guest speaker at the Second International Forum of the State Institute of International Relations in Moscow at which he made a long speech lavishly praising the Soviet Union for its big contribution to his intellectual development. There was not a hint of irony in his words.

“I must say, as a political person, I owe everything to the Soviet Union, which equipped me with the lights and dialectical knowledge that came from the Institute of Social Studies, as well as from the Academy of Social Studies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.”

So do not blame the comrade with the ample bum for the mess we are in today; blame the Academy of Social Studies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for teaching him dialectical knowledge instead of a few basic things about how an economy works.

There is no space to go into the rest of his paean to the Soviet Union, but we hope to give it more extensive coverage when we are short of things to write about and are feeling nostalgic for his dialectical knowledge and wisdom.

WHILE this speech was ignored by the media, his interview on Mega TV last Thursday, was given extensive coverage by the newspapers, because he revealed why he considered Nicos Katsourides unfit to have become the AKEL chief when the leadership was up for grabs.
In so doing he revealed the puritanical values embraced by our unreconstructed communists.

According to Tof, who portrayed himself as the perfect role model for all prospective AKEL leaders, Kats scored zero in the Puritanism test, often displaying a weakness for the decadent bourgeois lifestyle.

“Did you ever see me sitting in a public place drinking whisky with others?” he asked the interviewer referring to Kats’ immoral habit of sitting in the Hilton Hotel lobby downing Scotch and smoking a fat Cuban cigar (before the smoking ban) in the company of wealthy members of the Nicosia bourgeoisie.

Asked by the interviewer if this were a bad thing, the morally superior comrade snapped back: “For Akelites it is a bad thing; they should drink at home.” He said Akelites “want their leader to be an example,” again citing himself as the perfect example of commie leader. “Did you ever see me indulging in luxury?”

And Kats was also a bit lazy. “It is also a matter of daily work and how much you sweat on the chair, it is your way of life which for workers matter very much.” This was a bit disingenuous because if you have a fat bum you sweat on the chair even if you are doing no work at all. And Kats’ backside is as ample as comrade role-model’s.

IN SHORT, you can be the biggest idiot in the world, but as long you have a big bum that helps you sweat in your chair, do not indulge in luxury living and do not drink Scotch in public you can be the leader of AKEL. At no point did he mention a tiny bit of intelligence as a requirement for the AKEL chief.

He illustrated this point during the TV interview when he revealed that he disagreed with the way AKEL had handled Stavros Malas’ campaign in the last presidential elections. The party was wrong not to project “the very significant work that was done during my administration on all levels, even if the theft by the banks led things to where they are now.”

Should we ask on what level the blowing up of the power station was?

THE COUNTRY has become a much livelier place since the Barbaros entered our EEZ accompanied by a couple of warships last Monday. We just love a small and harmless Turkey-provoked crisis that enables us to demand attention from the international community and allows our politicians and hacks to go on the moral offensive.

The papers do their best to exaggerate the problem. “The waters in the Cyprus EEZ boiling,” warned the Simerini banner headline on Monday, the day on which Barbaros was to start its survey. Sigmalive website had a live stream from a website that follows the movements of all ships, showing the whereabouts of the Turkish ship at any given moment.

The next day Phil tried to outdo its rival with a headline about “the new invasion”, but on Wednesday Simerini hit back with the inspired “Turkish occupation of our seas as well.”

MORE worrying than the headlines was the two-day National Council meeting to discuss the measures that would incur a cost on Turkey for its provocative actions. And there is nothing scarier than hearing the party leaders praise the unity and harmony that prevailed at the meeting, because it meant the lunatics had taken control.

It was disappointing to see no mention of Mother Russia or Vladimir Putin in any of the eight measures, especially after Prez Nik’s two-hour meeting with Vlad in Milan and the arrival of the Russian warships in the Mediterranean for exercises on the day the Barbaros started its provocations which, as our government spokesman insisted, was no coincidence.

It was also no coincidence that the Russian warships did not go anywhere near the Turkish ship because they were in the Mediterranean for a military exercise and not to protect Kyproulla’s EEZ as many idiots had been claiming.

THE BIG test was at the Thursday-Friday European Council at which our Prez would have tried to secure the strongest possible condemnation of Turkey’s actions in line with the National Council’s decision.

We suffered a big setback when he fell ill, but Greece’s PM Antonis Samaras represented him and got a statement urging Turkey to show restraint and respect Cyprus’ sovereignty and EEZ. Don’t know if it was a good or bad statement – that is for our many experts to decide – but the spokesman liked it, as these “conclusions will help put pressure on Turkey to resume negotiations without threats and intimidation.”

In the unlikely event the conclusions pressure the Turks to return to negotiations who will pressure Prez Nik to return now that he is talking like Ethnarch Tassos and has the unanimous backing of the National Council. Last Sunday he declared: “I want to convey in every direction that I will not give in to admonitions and suggestions for a return to a dialogue of the deaf.”

SPOKESMAN Nicos Christodoulides borrowed a phrase from economics to explain the reasoning behind the government’s counter-measures. He kept repeating all week that our measures would exploit the ‘comparative advantage’ of Cyprus in relation to Turkey, such as our EU membership.

‘Comparative advantage’ is used in economic theory with regard to the potential gains from free trade. If we were engaged in trade with the Turks its use would have been understandable, but when it comes to power relations between countries in dispute over land or sea we tick all the boxes of not just comparative, but absolute disadvantage.

Crystal at the House, where she told MPs we should not flagellate ourselves

GOVERNOR of the Central Bank Crystal Georghadji showed the self-serving smugness of all the overpaid inadequates that make up our parasitic nomenclature when she went to the House ethics committee last week and said “we must not flagellate ourselves”.

The leading parasites do not approve of us being self-critical, because it reflects on them as well. Crystal was commenting about a report in the New York Times that cited minutes from an ECB meeting at which reservations had been expressed about the granting of ELA to Laiki; there were also accusations that Laiki had inflated, by more than a billion euro, the value of its assets used as collateral for ELA.

Crystal also urged deputies not to believe the foreign press about ELA, resorting to the traditional xenophobia that members of the nomenclature use when they do not know what to say. It is this foreign press that had been reporting there would be a bail-in of deposits in Kyproulla two months before the Eurogroup made its decision and we did not believe it.

The New York Times had referred to the possibility of a bail-in in January 2013.

Crystal might not like flagellating herself, but perhaps someone else should flagellate her for trying to offer protection to her predecessor by claiming foreign hacks were lying.

CRYSTAL should flagellate herself for the sneaky way in which she had a provision of her contract changed before assuming the post of governor, so that her lawyer daughter could carry on representing the former head honcho of Laiki bank Andreas Vgenopoulos in the legal case brought against him by the administrator of Laiki.

The provision she had removed, with the consent of her friend the AG, barred blood relatives of the governor from being involved in any business or profession that had dealings with the Central Bank. The blatant conflict of interest she is guilty of – the administrator of Laiki is answerable to the governor – is not in violation of her contract, so legally she is covered.

Deputies of the House ethics committee were to discuss this matter, but put it off because the AG did not bother attending the meeting. They wanted the AG to tell them there was a conflict of interest, as they would not dare say so themselves. They had the self-awareness of what people in glass houses should never do.

THERE WAS an unintended admission of corruption by the president of the Cyprus Football Association, Costakis Koutsokoumnis when talking about a dispute he had with Anorthosis football club. Speaking on Radio Proto, Koutsokoumnis said that the CFA did a favour in not deducting six points from Anorthosis, as it should have done, because the club had not satisfied the financial criteria of UEFA.

He said: “We did not deduct six points in March, because of the UEFA criteria, because Anorthosis signed a television contract with the CFA and took an advance. But when the club signed a contract with another provider as well, we could have brought back the issue of the criteria and deducted the points. It was afforded favourable treatment. We helped Anorthosis.”

And if anyone accuses Koutsokoumnis of not implementing the UEFA criteria, we would refer them to Crystal’s wise advice – we must not flagellate ourselves.

COULD you believe it? The presidency of the Russian Federation issued an official announcement of all the meetings President Putin had while he was in Milan and it did not mention the long meeting he had over dinner with Prez Nik, which our government made a big song and dance about.

Two leaders being sat next to each other at the dinner table – probably because no other leader wanted to sit next to Vlad – obviously did not count as an official meeting for the Russians. It did for our government which even issued an announcement informing us what Putin had told Nik.

Interestingly, when our spokesman was asked yesterday whether there had been a row at the European summit between Samaras and British PM David Cameron over the wording of the conclusions about the Cyprus EEZ, he haughtily replied that he did not comment about what was said between leaders at meetings behind closed doors.

Well, only a week earlier he was commenting on what Vlad had told Nik at the dinner table, behind closed doors.

WE ARE continuing our weekly item, featuring the obsequious reports Phil carried about the Soviet Union in days gone by, by popular demand (one reader said she liked it). On October 20, 1964 the Makarios mouthpiece wrote:

“The foreign policy of the Soviet Union remains unchanged, Leonid Brezhnev declared yesterday. The change of guard in the Kremlin, with the removal of Nikita Khrushchev from power, had caused concern in Cyprus. Until then, the Soviet Union constituted the main support of Cyprus and Makarios used it as the counter-veiling force to avert a possible Turkish invasion.”

The paper not only worshipped the Soviet Union it also attacked Soviet foes happily repeating Kremlin’s official rhetoric. On October 24, 1964, it had a report from the UK, which said: “The English conspiracy remains unchanged. The imperialists insist on a NATO solution; they rule out Enosis, demand bases and the stationing of Turkish troops in these.”

“The new plot”, according to Phil’s correspondent “aims at the NATOfication of Cyprus and its transformation into a nuclear base.”

These reports were as reliable as the Soviet propaganda organ’s claims, in the same period, that “Soviet warships, equipped with missiles had sailed into the Mediterranean to repel any attack against Cyprus and that “Soviet paratroopers were ready for immediate action.”

EVERYONE seems to agree that the only way to put the economy on the road to recovery is by attracting investment from abroad. The state has no money to invest in big development projects – a synonym for road-building of which there is no real need – and the banks are more concerned with recovering their loans than giving out new ones.

Some money is being secured from EU structural funds, but most of this goes to public projects that are plagued by delays and bad management and therefore do not have a big impact on the economy. The granting of citizenship to individuals who invest three to five million euro in the economy has had limited success, but the government will not be able to rely on this policy for much longer because it is under pressure from the EU to put an end to it. And the numbers – probably less than a hundred individuals since the plan was introduced – are too small to make much difference to a struggling economy.

In a nutshell, only substantial direct investment from abroad could kick-start the economy. Business organisations, the government and the political parties regularly pay lip service to the need of attracting foreign investment but the words are rarely translated into action because of bureaucracy, vested interests or political expediency. Reports of foreign companies being turned away because civil servants were placing unnecessary obstacles in their way is nothing new nor is public opposition by political parties, protecting local interests.

On Thursday at the legislature we were given a demonstration of this reckless attitude by the political parties which passed legislation aimed at imposing new environmental requirements on the US oil services company Halliburton, which had secured all the necessary permits to build factories and large warehouses in the Aradippou industrial zone. The company did everything by the book – it secured permission from Town Planning, after studies commissioned by Aradippou and Larnaca municipalities, which showed the factories would pose no risk to residents, were submitted to the Environment Department of the agriculture ministry and given the green light.

Deputies on Thursday approved a bill imposing additional environmental requirements on the company and were furious when they realised the law would not apply to Halliburton because Aradippou municipal council had issued a building permit two days earlier. The bill, proposed by Giorgos Perdikis, was another example of mindless populism. It pandered to residents of the surrounding area who were claiming that ‘hazardous and radioactive material’ would be processed and stored in the Halliburton facilities posing a health risk. The populist Perdikis ignored the fact that the company had secured all the necessary licences and permits from the state services and wanted to impose new rules.

Is this how we plan to attract foreign investment – by changing the rules and requirements once a foreign company has made a decision to set up operations here? There could be no worse advertisement for investment in a country than this. What company would spend millions to set up operations in Cyprus when it could be at the mercy of populists like Perdikis, whose primary concern is pandering to a few hundred residents?

If we want foreign investment our politicians and officials need to change their attitude. It is Cyprus that needs the big companies and not the other way round. There is acute competition for foreign investment with countries offering many incentives to attract big companies to their shores. And Cyprus, which is desperate for the injection of cash from abroad that would create jobs and boost demand, is going out of its way to alienate investors.

Elsewhere in today’s paper there is a report about a UK-based company that is run by a Cypriot and has developed innovative waste management technology that turns waste into energy. The company, which recently landed a multi-million pound project in Wales, was turned away by our government despite its offer to manage Cyprus’ landfills at zero cost to the taxpayer. The bureaucrats and politicians chose to carry on paying millions every year for waste management – money that could have been used for other projects – rather than opt for innovative technology at zero cost.

Next month the big oil storage facilities set up at Vassiliko by the international company VTTI, at an estimated cost of €300 million, will start operations. The 28 oil depots have a capacity of 544,000 cubic metres and will serve more than 500 tankers a year. This was a big foreign investment that, somehow, was allowed to happen and Cyprus will be reaping the benefits for many years to come. Hopefully it will help our politicians, bureaucrats and officials abandon their negative mindset and recognise the importance of encouraging rather than placing endless obstacles to foreign investment.

By Angelos Anastasiou

A COUPLE of months ago, the government finalised awarding a 10-year, €70-million contract to a private consortium for the construction and operation of a waste-management facility in Pentakomo to cover the needs of the Limassol district, despite having been presented with an alternative that would have eliminated all cost to the taxpayer.

Because of non-conformity with European waste-management and minimum recycling standards that warranted a fine for Cyprus from the European Commission, as well as tight deadlines to qualify for partial funding of the project by the EU, the interior ministry was in a hurry to press ahead with the project late last year, and invited tenders early in 2014.

The lowest bid, submitted by a consortium comprising Cypriot construction giants Medcon, Loizos Iordanou Constructions, and Miltiades Neophytou Contractors and Developers, and Dutch recycling firm db Technologies BV, at over €70 million over 10 years, was considered a huge improvement on the ministry’s estimate of nearly €122 million for the project’s cost.

But amidst the tender process in April 2014, a strange little-known company, Egnedol Ltd, approached government officials with an offer that seemed to turn everything on its head.

“Back then we met, among others, with Undersecretary to the President Constantinos Petrides, Environment Minister Nicos Kouyialis, and Interior Minister Socratis Hasikos,” said Antonis Antoniades, one of the firm’s co-founders.

The offer was for the company to be sold the Kotsiatis and Vati landfills, which would operate as a “bank of raw materials” for the waste-to-energy company, and included the construction and operation of the Pentakomo facility, all at no cost to the government.

“That’s because garbage – plastic, organic materials, metals, and so on – is not garbage,” Antoniades explained. “To us, that’s energy. That’s profit.”

Apparently, Egnedol holds some 30 patents, each representing a waste-management technology more efficient than any other devised thus far, four of which are waste-to-energy methods – generating electricity from garbage. Not only that: by-products from various waste management processes are also planned for, with several side-projects like fish-farms and even a cheese-production plant surrounding the main waste-management facility.

But talks never went past initial exploratory meetings, and the contract was finally awarded to the lowest bidder of the initial tender process in July.

“We had received very positive reactions from everyone, except for the interior ministry,” according to Antoniades. “That’s where things got stuck.”

The pioneering entrepreneurs quickly realised that ministry officials and technocrats couldn’t help being sceptical of their wares, and told them that a visit to the company’s UK plant could be arranged in order to help allay their concerns, provided they signed a confidentiality agreement.

What happened next isn’t quite clear, but it seems likely that the old truism about things that sound too good to be true kicked in, and an invisible hand promptly cut off all contact.

“That’s when things fell apart – when we asked for a confidentiality agreement before showing them around our UK facility,” Antoniades said. “We never heard back from them after that.”

Late in April, vague reports surfaced in the press of a brewing row between Hasikos and Kouyialis, with some commentators claiming it had to do with the two men’s opposing views on Egnedol’s proposal.

Not so, Kouyialis told the Sunday Mail.

“The interior ministry was never negative towards this proposal,” he said. “It has not rejected anything. But at that time, the deadline for finalising a solution for the Pentakomo site was pressing hard, and the joint decision that the tender process could not be suspended was the right one.”

According to Kouyialis, an EU directive saying all of Cyprus’ landfills had to be closed down by June 2013 was never complied with, and the government was able to secure an extension until 2015 – otherwise a fine was sure to come our way.

“We are certainly aware of this investor’s offer, and nothing is off the table in terms of future prospects,” Kouyialis added. “But at that time it was simply too late to consider anything else.”

But that isn’t quite Hasikos’ side of the story.

Asked about the issue by the Sunday Mail, he made quite clear where he stood – but he didn’t mention pressing deadlines.

“These investors presented hot air,” he said. “When we pressed them for specifics, they had no answers.”

Hasikos implied Egnedol was seeking to be awarded the contract without being subjected to the scrutiny of the ministry’s tenders committee.

“There will be no awarded contracts without tenders as long as I’m here,” he said. “There are procedures and rules. Why did these people not enter the tender process? Did they not know about it?”

Since then, Egnedol has entered various bidding processes for similar waste-to-energy projects, and won one in Wales, estimated to cost some €450 million.

“During the meeting at the interior ministry, we told them about the Wales prospect – some scoffed, and most could not hide their scepticism,” Antoniades said with a hint of a sarcastic smile.

The rubbish dump in Kotsiatis

But life goes on – and so did the aspiring garbagemen.

“We’ve lost the Pentakomo job – fine,” said the company’s rep. “We’re interested in a couple of things right now. One is the [upcoming] Nicosia plant, which would also include the Kotsiatis landfill. And two, we’re building a small plant near the Limassol port – I say small, it’s actually a €25-million investment that will employ 47 people. It will start with aluminium recycling, and then we’ll add recycling of plastics.”

Egnedol considers the Limassol plant a minor project by their standards, but believe it can serve as a foothold in the Cyprus market ahead of the Nicosia plant bids.

“One of the reasons we couldn’t enter the Pentakomo facility tenders process was that its parameters were too narrow,” explained Antoniades. “It asked for the minimum required to ensure compliance with the EU directive. That is, separating garbage, recycling some, burying the rest – a crime, in our opinion. As I said, garbage is energy to us. It’s profit.”

So they are hoping the Nicosia waste-management tender parameters will be opened up to include new technologies that will allow Egnedol to table its proposal officially.

“Our proposal will be the same,” said Antoniades. “We want the Kotsiatis landfill and will undertake the construction and operation of the Nicosia waste-management facility using private money.”

In addition, Egnedol offers a scheme that involves the creation of a “green fund”, to which it pledges to contribute €1.5 million annually, provided it is earmarked for the development of communities surrounding the facilities, and the restoration of what is now the Kotsiatis landfill into a park.

“The plant will create very cheap electricity, which can then either be sold to the public at a price as low as 16 cents per kilowatt hour, or channelled to the existing national power grid,” Antoniades said. The EAC’s price for household electricity as at mid-2013 was estimated at 25 cents per kilowatt hour.

“All we would need is a power-production licence,” he added.

Egnedol’s people estimate that its proposal will earn the government €45 million in direct profits, and add to that the cost for the new facility it will not have to assume.

Asked whether the firm will be considered if it submits a tender when Nicosia’s waste-management project is announced, Hasikos was, again, dismissive.

“Sure,” he said. “If and when they enter the tender process, if and when tenders are invited, they’ll be considered – who knows when that will be.”

Faced with such dismissive attitudes, Egnedol has little reason for optimism.

“Look, as a country, we’re deep in the throes of an unprecedented crisis,” said Antoniades. “But it also presents us with a great opportunity for change. If we fail to seize it now that we are being forced to, it will never, ever happen.”

“There is a hard, entrenched establishment in place – that’s nothing new,” he added. “And it probably makes sense that any new ideas, or people, that might try to do things more efficiently could be perceived as a threat. But the state has to not only accept, but actively encourage – through tax-breaks, for example – the development of hi-tech industries, if only to reverse the dramatic brain-drain Cyprus is suffering. There is so much education in Cyprus, and we’re losing it because we have nothing to keep it busy with.”

By Stefanos Evripidou

AS THE stand-off between Turkey and Cyprus over hydrocarbon exploration continues, efforts are underway to find a ‘face-saving formula’ that would allow the resumption of peace talks between the two.

According to various sources, if the Barbaros, Turkey’s seismic research vessel currently doing the rounds of Cypriot offshore blocks, leaves Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) soon, the omens are good for a swift return to the negotiating table, even with Turkey’s navigational telex (NAVTEX) still in place.

If Turkey’s prodding of the EEZ continues until the NAVTEX expires on December 30, while Cyprus’ poking of Ankara intensifies, using all legal, diplomatic and political means at its disposal, then we’re looking at ushering in the new year on a bit of a downer. Meanwhile, the Turkish Cypriot election campaign will get into full swing.

Whatever happens, everyone agrees that sooner or later the talks will start again.

But with confidence, momentum and trust in the peace process hitting the ground faster than an oil drill, the question raised by recent tensions is can Cyprus risk developing its natural resources in the long-run without cutting a deal with Turkey?

The vast majority of the international community has clearly backs Cyprus’ legitimate right to develop its resources, with EU leaders reinforcing this view on Friday when they urged Turkey to show restraint and respect Cyprus’ sovereignty over its territorial sea and EEZ.

The US has also made it clear it supports Cyprus’ sovereign rights to exploit its resources. While refraining from public criticism, Washington has pressed home the point to Ankara in recent weeks that Barbaros’ latest walkabout is unauthorised, recording a clear disagreement on the issue – among others – between the two capitals.

But as one Cypriot diplomat put it: “We’ve got volumes of resolutions in our favour since 1963. There are lots of nice statements but the Barbaros is still there.”

At the same time, foreign powers acknowledge that the island’s resources belong to all Cypriots, a nod to the rights of Turkish Cypriots. They stress the importance of the peace talks resuming, and in a small dig at Ankara, encourage the cultivation of a more productive and positive environment for negotiations to continue.

Another source told the Sunday Mail that the international community’s backing of Cyprus’ sovereign rights to exploit and monetise its hydrocarbons is “clear”, however, executing those rights is Cyprus’ own responsibility.

The general view is that Turkey is sending a strong political message that it opposes the development of hydrocarbons in Cyprus’ EEZ. Every time Cyprus takes a step forward in its energy plans, Ankara engages in a tit-for-tat move to frustrate and even frighten the islanders.

Whether Turkey’s petroleum corporation TPAO has the substantial funds and will to go all the way and bring a costly rig to drill in Cyprus’ EEZ remains to be seen.

Some analysts argue this is Ankara’s way of reminding Nicosia that with or without a Cyprus solution, Turkey is a big coastal country and wants a say in energy developments in the eastern Mediterranean. Whether this means actual dibs on the deposits or relates more to ensuring gas is funnelled to Turkey via pipeline is unclear.

A foreign ministry source said Turkey is sending the message, “I am present”, which many expected after gas quantities were confirmed in block 9, not before.

“Turkey wants to test our reactions and those of third parties. It wants to measure those reactions and build on them for its next steps,” said the source, who argued that the president had little choice but to protest Turkey’s brazen moves as loud as possible.

The government would have loved to send a few navy vessels to wave its flag in the sea but it doesn’t have any and is not so naive to think anyone else is going to wave the flag for Cyprus.

Despite the heavy government spin on the timing of Israeli air and Russian naval exercises near Cyprus, the reality is these things take months to prepare and were not organised as a counter to Turkish violations.

This leaves the Anastasiades government with one major weapon, the art of protest. Of course there are nuances to protesting, and threats of pulling the brakes on Turkey’s accession process or mixing the pot on Russian sanctions do add to the armoury.

But one analyst argued that Cyprus should focus less on Turkey’s behaviour and more on developing a more mature strategy for its own approach to gas development if it wants to achieve success in the long term.

A foreign ministry source argued in the long-run, Cyprus can extract its gas, even if no deal with Turkey is reached, “without this meaning we are under the illusion Turkey won’t react”.

“Just because we expect them to react to us developing our resources doesn’t mean we should raise our hands and say, here, take them,” he added.

The ministry is working on various scenarios as to how the hydrocarbons could be developed. The first aim is to get the quantities of gas confirmed. Then, exploitation can start. The underlying theme behind all the scenarios is developing strategic energy cooperation with neighbouring countries.

If the final decision is ever taken to build an LNG terminal, this will take years. In the meantime, Cyprus could work on exporting gas to Jordan and Egypt, in possible collaboration with Israel.

“It’s one thing for Turkey to interfere with small Cyprus’ plans and another to impact upon other countries in the region, particularly Egypt and Israel,” said the ministry source.

However, he stressed, “At no stage have we ruled out cooperation with Turkey, provided a Cyprus problem solution precedes it. Without a solution, there is no issue of cooperating with Turkey. We are not entertaining this scenario.”

The ministry is working on a number of scenarios on how to cooperate with Turkey post-solution – looking at LNG export, pipeline from Cyprus or Israel – depending on the timeline, gas finds and how advanced energy plans are.

“The best case scenario is a Cyprus solution, and cooperation with Turkey in hydrocarbons. The form of cooperation depends on the time of a solution, what arrangements or agreements have been reached by then.”

An important question is what will the regional environment look like in the next five to ten years? Things are changing rapidly and nobody can predict with certainty what will happen in the region.

The two leaders earlier this year

The source argued that while being an EU member state has afforded Cyprus greater security politically and diplomatically, a reunified Cyprus in the EU would be even more secure.

While the discovery of hydrocarbons has strengthened Cyprus’ hand, he argues it really could be a blessing or a curse. “If we handle the hydrocarbons the way we’ve handled a lot of things since 1960, we will be cursed. We need to get very serious and play it right.”

On paper, Turkey is acting on behalf of the Turkish Cypriots, something which their leader Dervis Eroglu is keen to stress. But the Turkish Cypriots’ rather unhealthy dependence on Turkey has led to a continental shelf agreement between the two which greatly favours Turkey’s energy ambitions, regardless of the fact Cyprus deems it null and void under international law.

Turkey’s refusal to recognise the rights of islands to an EEZ explains why it has eaten up a fair portion of the island’s northern EEZ boundary, at the cost of the ‘daughterland’ and potentially, a future federal state.

How this square will be circled is one for the future, if and when a solution appears.

In the meantime, a Turkish Cypriot source told the paper there was no way Cyprus would be allowed to extract gas without reaching an agreement with Ankara first.

“It cannot and won’t happen. The resources belong to both communities,” he said.

Apart from wanting a cut, the driving concern of the Turkish Cypriots is that the Greek Cypriots will become rich and powerful through energy development, shifting the balance of power and strengthening their negotiating position greatly.

The source argued that President Anastasiades has employed delaying tactics in the negotiations, first creating numerous preconditions, then revising a significant number of past convergences, now suspending the talks as part of a grander scheme to improve his side’s bargaining position.

He argued that even if an escrow account was opened in the name of Turkish Cypriots and filled with their share of gas revenues, this would give the Greek Cypriots greater leverage over them.

“It would allow them to point to this wealth and say, look, if you want this, you have to agree to this, this and this,” he said.

The source argued either gas developments are put on hold while the peace process is ongoing or the Greek Cypriots agree to jointly manage the hydrocarbons around the island.

The foreign ministry source ruled out any proposal to put the gas on the negotiating table: “This has been rejected. It is absolutely clear. We never agreed to this.”
In the meantime, the clock keeps ticking, Barbaros keeps roaming, everyone keeps protesting, and the division remains.

By Laura Noonan and Eva Taylor

After putting the euro zone’s top 130 banks through their paces, the European Central Bank will face a test of its own on Sunday – will its landmark health check succeed in convincing investors the region’s lenders are safe?

The ECB will announce the names of 25 banks that held too little capital at the end of last year, along with details of around 10 banks that have not yet made up the shortfall. The announcement is due at 1100 GMT.

As well as the number of failures, Reuters has already reported details of several banks’ performance, including that Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Greece’s Alpha Bank passed the tests while Ireland’s Permanent TSB failed.

Other media outlets have also reported how some banks and countries’ banking systems have fared.

With much of the news revealed in advance, the major remaining question is whether the exercise will be judged credible enough to banish lingering fears about euro zone banks, freeing them up to lend again and tempt U.S. investors back to European banking shares.

The ECB has staked its reputation on delivering an independent assessment of the euro zone banks before it takes over as their supervisor on Nov. 4.

The European Banking Authority (EBA), which will include the ECB results in an announcement of EU-wide stress test results at the same time on Sunday, is hoping its exercise will prove more convincing than previous rounds in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

The euro dipped on Friday amid uncertainty about the results, while euro area banking stocks were volatile as rumours swirled about who had passed and who had not. Initial comments from investors on Sunday and trading in banks on Monday will be the first real indication of how the tests are judged.

“At least we will get a true picture of what the banks have genuinely in their books,” said Alan Lemangnen, Europe economist at Natixis in Paris. “We see that the solvency of the European banking sector will improve and has already improved.”

ASSET VALUATIONS KEY

Sources familiar with the tests say the ECB’s findings on whether banks have overvalued their assets, and what kind of corrective action it demands, will be at least as significant as who passes or fails.

A forensic review of how banks value their assets marks these health checks out from three previous EBA tests. While just 20 percent of banks have failed the ECB tests, most lenders are expected to be found to have overvalued their assets.

If the ECB judges banks’ assets to be worth far less than the banks do, it will not force a bank to immediately take additional loan losses.

However, banks will have to hold more capital to reflect the ECB’s assessment of their likely future losses as asset values fall to what the ECB believes they are now. This will leave banks with less flexibility to expand, lend or pay dividends.

Any outcome that depresses lending would be at odds with the ECB’s objective of getting banks to pump more credit into the euro zone economy to revive much-needed growth.

“Banks shied away from taking on new risks in order to look as safe as possible,” Berenberg analysts said. “Their uncertainty slowed the credit cycle over the last year, and prevented job-creating business investments from going ahead. This uncertainty should fade now.”

France’s central bank governor, Christian Noyer, said on Friday the exercise was “more rigorous than what was done in other big countries” and would restore credibility in the sector.

The results will be closely watched for any sign of political favouritism. Sources told Reuters on Friday that the checks found that banks in Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia and Portugal had fallen short of the capital benchmarks at the end of last year, while lenders in Spain and France had fared, by and large, better than expected.

In Germany, the president of the association of German private-sector banks, Juergen Fitschen, said on Thursday the results would probably give German lenders a clean bill of health, something that may raise eyebrows given widespread concerns about some areas of German banking like shipping lending.

Fitschen is also co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank . Sources told Reuters on Friday that the lender passed the stress test by a wide margin, showing balance sheet strength well above the minimum requirements.

NEXT STEPS
The ECB review is running in parallel with an EU-wide stress test, and the results for both will be announced simultaneously. ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio and chief supervisor Daniele Nouy will brief the media at 1130 GMT on Sunday.

The ECB’s passmark is for banks to have high-quality capital of at least 8 percent of their risk-weighted assets in the most likely economic scenario for the next three years, and capital of at least 5.5 percent in an adverse scenario.

The assessment is based on banks’ positions at the end of 2013. Since the end of last year, however, banks have already strengthened their balance sheets by issuing new shares, retaining earnings or selling assets. This may mean that even if banks fail, they may have already dealt with their problems.

Since mid-2013, efforts by banks to boost their balance sheets have amounted to 203 billion euros, the ECB said.

Banks with a capital shortfall will have to present the ECB within two weeks with a plan that details how they intend to close the gaps. They will then be given six to nine months to do so, depending on where in the review the shortfalls occurred.

“We expect the capital solutions to be found within the private sector and see extremely limited requests for public funds,”

UN Secretary General`s Special Adviser Espen Barth Eide is getting ready to visit the triangle Ankara – Athens – Nicosia during the first week of November.

UN sources say that the former Norwegian Foreign Minister`s first stop will be Ankara on Novermber 4. He will travel to Athens on November 5 and to Cyprus on November 7.

Eide, who has been in New York and has met with Ban Ki-moon and UN Secretariat officials, also had meetings with the permanent representatives of Greece and Turkey and the acting permanent representative of Cyprus as well as a representative of the Turkish Cypriots and ambassadors of the UN Security Council`s permanent member–states.

During his meetings with Greek and Cypriot diplomats he seemed to understand the position of principle that it would be amiss to hold peace talks under present circumstances but also referred to the need for “mutual compromises”, which according to him would mean the return to the situation as it stood previously.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Talks underway between President of the Republic of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu have been interrupted after President Anastasiades suspended his participation, following Turkish provocations in Cyprus` exclusive economic zone.

Other sources say that Eide also put forward the idea of establishing a new working group, which would act as a think tank and would focus on explaining to Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots the benefits from hydrocarbons exploitation.

He also said to have noted that stability is a necessary element for energy companies operating in the region.

Greek and Cypriot officials explained to Eide that an effort to include natural resources and the Republic of Cyprus` sovereign rights in the reunification talks would not be accepted.

The UN SG`s Special Adviser is said to have appeared optimistic that he can help bring momentum to the reunification process with the ideas he will bring to the table, provided that current obstacles are surpassed.

CNA