Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-21-Speech-3-026"
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"en.20040421.1.3-026"2
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"Mr President, on Saturday, Cyprus votes on the Annan Plan and its future. Cyprus stands at a historic juncture. European Liberal Democrats and Reformers in this House have consistently urged all parties to support the plan and we do so again now.
The Annan Plan offers Cyprus a chance for reconciliation and renewal. It is a door to a better future on an island that has endured too much for too long. The plan makes important concessions to both sides. With goodwill on both sides it could be a first step away from years of partition. My Group thanks Commissioner Verheugen for the leadership he has shown in this matter. We regret that more EU leaders have not expressed the same commitment more volubly. The European Union will underwrite a huge amount of the reunification process and the Court of Justice will provide a legal framework for its resolution. This is the last, best hope for a unified Cyprus to join the European Union on 1 May.
We salute the leaders on both sides in Cyprus who have supported the Annan process and have commended it to their fellow Cypriots. 'No' would have been the simple choice: the answer which rhymed easily with resentment and suited political expediency. 'Yes' took courage.
There are many Cypriots, particularly on the Greek side, who ask what business it is of ours to be having this debate at all. In the face of all our concern and consternation they offer simply the shrug of self-determination. They can and will vote as they please and they have the right to vote 'no'. But I believe it would be a sad and sectarian choice, the wrong choice for the wrong reasons. Moreover, if the purpose of self-determination is the freedom to go on nursing old resentments and the right to weigh the money in your pocket today against reconciliation tomorrow, the Cypriots who have turned their faces against this process are welcome to it. I would just ask them to reflect on this. What if the West Germans had chosen that kind of self-determination in 1990?
On our scarred continent with its crowded history there are some old scores where restitution and compensation can only ever be relative. Only the historically illiterate can believe that we can somehow fix what has happened in Cyprus, anymore than we can fix Kosovo and Serbia or Israel and Palestine. What Cyprus needs is a
: some way of living that looks forward rather than backward.
The Annan Plan is a
. If it is lost on Saturday it could put back the reunification of Cyprus by a generation. The European Union would have to face up to a new reality on the ground: the possibility for a peaceful transfer of land will be lost; the Turkish army will continue to guard what will remain a militarised border; UN peacekeepers will patrol within the European Union.
The English writer Lawrence Durrell, who lived for many years on Cyprus, recorded a Greek Cypriot proverb that says there is no fire in old ashes. Liberal Democrats and Reformers in this House hope beyond hope that Sunday will not find Cypriots stirring the cold old ashes of a sad history."@en1
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