Filenews 18 April 2021
A big loser from this development is the Cypriot citizen, interior minister Nikos Nouris said, asked to comment on the Parliament's failure to approve a referendum on the reform of local government.
The Government, Mr. Nouris said, received the message from the House during the debate that the vast majority of parliamentary parties in the A or B way, preferred referendums to take the view of the sovereign people.
From the moment, he continued, when the Attorney General of the Republic had made it clear through his opinion, that local referendums, as proposed by the House, cannot be promoted, because they involve unconstitutionality, as he said, the government, while respecting precisely the position of the parties, proceeded to this position, which was a very clear, contrary to what was heard, position.
We have asked, Mr Nouris said, a question that we have asked the sovereign people to answer if they want this reform. Through this question, he continued, what we were essentially claiming was to solve some problems.
He said a specific scenario was proposed by the government on the basis of a specific study, for 17 new entities, noting that there were disagreements discussed.
He also said that they asked for this question to be put before the sovereign people, and they wanted the world to be able to take a stand.
He also stated that they have been deprived of this right of choice and unfortunately with the start of the new Parliament we will be back in front of the possibility of discussing, as he said, how many new entities should be, whether the A or B changes should be made.
In addition, there is the problem of the Recovery Fund, which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, "at the moment our first concern as Home Office immediately after voting against the referendum proposal was that we moved quickly towards the European Commission to convince and remove their objections to the issue of the Recovery Fund".
Mr Nouris then expressed the hope that we would have a positive response from the European Commission before the end of this month, so that there would be no freezes on the funds relating to the Recovery Fund with regard to Local Government, he concluded.
Eyenews / CYPE
