The losses for Nicosia outweigh the gains of an unsigned invitation to President Christodoulides.
The participation of the president of the Republic of Cyprus in the COP31 UN climate conference, taking place on Turkish soil in Antalya on November 11–12, triggered a minor crisis in Brussels. The response was a “compromise” that appears tailored more to Turkey’s preferences, leaving Cyprus shortchanged compared with its 26 EU partners.
As Kathimerini revealed last Sunday, Tayyip Erdogan had sent invitation letters to the leaders of Cyprus’ 26 EU partners several weeks earlier, excluding the Cypriot president.
The arrangement brokered by the EU in consultation with Ankara amounts to a lowering of standards that leaves Cyprus a second-class member alongside its 26 European partners.
According to information obtained, during discussions between the European Commission and Ankara to find a “compromise”, the EU never demanded that Turkey treat the president of the Republic of Cyprus in the same way as the other 26 leaders. Instead, it sought an ad hoc arrangement to get around the problem.
In other words, the EU never asked Erdogan to send an invitation letter to Nikos Christodoulides, knowing from the outset where Ankara’s limits lay.
This is Nicosia’s first major loss: The supposedly judicious compromise did not even test Ankara’s limits. Instead, it breached the EU’s own boundaries. The bloc discussed and proposed an arrangement tailored to Ankara, one that continues to leave the unmistakable shadow of discrimination hanging over a member state, the Republic of Cyprus.
The arrangement between Brussels and Ankara, accepted by Nicosia, sidesteps the fact that Erdogan invited 26 EU leaders while excluding the Cypriot president. In its place, it introduces a stage-managed procedure requiring no corrective action from Erdogan or the Turkish state.
They merely allowed the Turkish organising authority for COP31 to send fresh, unsigned invitations by email to all member states through Brussels, ensuring that one would also reach President Nikos Christodoulides.
Turkey thus backtracked only partially, using an impersonal organising body to send a new invitation to the leaders of all 27 member states, including Christodoulides. Yet the move carries no political cost for Ankara: The COP31 organising authority is not an institution of the Turkish state and will cease to exist within a few months.
Two foreign diplomatic sources who spoke to Kathimerini made the following point: “The main objective of the Brussels–Ankara consultations was less about satisfying the Republic of Cyprus than about ensuring the EU did not find itself in difficulty.”
According to the same sources, “the EU was concerned that the issue might escalate further, forcing decisions on whether the bloc would attend the climate conference collectively. And this at a time when Europe’s interests in strengthening its defence and security architecture align with the prospect of closer cooperation with Turkey.”
Against this backdrop, Nicosia warned at successive closed-door meetings of Coreper, the committee of member states’ permanent representatives, that it would seek conclusions condemning Turkey. The matter did ultimately make it into the European Council’s conclusions, but only as a general call for the equal participation of all member states in COP31, with a reference to solidarity.
The partners’ concern, however, was not a general two- or three-line reference in the conclusions. It was the possibility of a situation developing that would force the EU to decide collectively whether to attend the Antalya climate conference or stay away in response to discrimination against a member state.
As one source put it: “In an extreme, but not implausible, version of this scenario, can you imagine some EU member states going to the UN climate conference in Antalya while others stayed away in protest and solidarity with Cyprus? Or the exact opposite: The EU deciding not to attend, with some member states going as though nothing had happened?”
The EU’s dilemma — how to handle Turkey’s attempt to exclude Cyprus without jeopardising its own interests and cooperation with Ankara, officially described as a “strategic partner” — led to a compromise that accommodates Nicosia only partially and as a matter of form. It does nothing to rectify Turkey’s blatant discrimination against the Republic of Cyprus.
In Turkey’s orbit
One conclusion is hard to escape: The EU is not merely unable to exert its will over Turkey. On the contrary, as Brussels sources put it, it is increasingly “in an orbit of dependence on Turkey”.
According to these sources, “a very large number of EU member states regard Ankara’s new involvement in Europe’s defence and security architecture, as a substitute for a retreating United States, as critically important. It appears to outweigh any consideration of Turkey’s obligations regarding a Cyprus settlement — let alone the sending of an invitation to the Cypriot president.”
On this reading, the EU is once again moving towards becoming a hostage to Turkey.
The parallel is with 2016, when member states handed Ankara a blank cheque to manage migration, as former Belgian prime minister and European Parliament Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt remarked sarcastically at the time.
A similar approach has been taking shape over the past 18 months in EU defence and security. Italy and Germany, in particular, believe Turkey has what it takes to fill the gap left by the United States. Erdogan, for his part, appears ready to provide these “Turkish services to the EU” — for a price.
The Erhurman factor
Meanwhile, Ankara has also invited Tufan Erhurman to COP31. He says he received his invitation back in July.
The invitation has, in any event, put Nicosia on alert once again. It has asked the EU to ensure that Ankara does not attempt to elevate him to the status of a “state” leader or bring him into the conference’s two-day leaders’ summit on November 11–12 through the back door.
According to Kathimerini’s information, Kaja Kallas informed President Christodoulides that, based on information received from Ankara, Erhurman would participate in events “on the sidelines” of COP31.
How that plays out remains to be seen.
An EU of lowered standards, unable to influence Ankara
The Republic of Cyprus may ultimately have secured a bare-bones invitation for President Christodoulides to attend the UN climate conference in Turkey. But his presence in Antalya on November 11–12 can hardly be considered sufficient compensation for the diminished treatment Cyprus accepted under the EU-imposed compromise.
One might reasonably ask whether Nicosia could afford to torpedo the outcome of the EU’s mediation, pursued by Ursula von der Leyen, Antonio Costa and Kaja Kallas through repeated interventions with Ankara.
The answer is no. Nicosia could not afford to derail the EU’s efforts to broker a compromise.
It did, however, have a duty to draw its own red lines and prevent the EU from sliding towards arrangements that leave Cyprus exposed and shortchanged alongside the other 26 member states. Instead, with the Cypriot government’s unfortunate agreement, the arrangement established discriminatory treatment against it.
The solution brokered by the EU in consultation with Ankara amounts to a lowering of standards that relegates Cyprus to second place within the European family.
Nicosia’s greatest losses do not concern the conduct of Ankara and Erdogan, which was more or less predictable. They concern, first, the ease with which the EU pursues solutions that disadvantage Cyprus and, above all, the exposure of the European project’s political weakness.
The EU proved unable to secure from Turkey an invitation to the president of the Republic of Cyprus without caveats — an invitation equivalent to those Erdogan sent the other 26 leaders to attend the UN climate conference.
This is precisely where the ground gives way beneath Nicosia’s expectations. The promises President Christodoulides has made over the past three and a half years sink into the quicksand of Brussels’ inability to act: the supposed “more active role” for the EU in the Cyprus issue, the supposed use of its policy tools, and the supposed ability of Brussels to compel Ankara to return to the agreed framework for a settlement.
These are the same Brussels institutions that stage-managed an ad hoc procedure over an issue of far less significance than resolving the Cyprus problem.
They shortchanged the Republic of Cyprus and cooked up a compromise tailored to Turkey, so that the Cypriot president could be invited to the UN climate conference by a faceless Turkish organising body — rather than by the president of Turkey.
