FES BRIEFING CYPRUS Trade Union Monitor July 2023 POLITICAL, ECONOMICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT Ever since a Greek coup and an ensuing Turkish invasion in 1974, the island of Cyprus has been divided into two parts. The Greek Cypriot community lives south of the dividing line in the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus. The Turkish Cypriots live in the north in the internationally not rec­ognised”Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus(TRNC)”. 1 The deadlock and uncertainty over the Cyprus issue continued in 2022. This situation has prevailed since the failure of the last round of talks to reunify the island at an international confer­ence in Crans Montana, Switzerland, in July 2017. A more confrontational Turkish foreign policy toward Greece and Cy­prus since 2019 also led to the election of a hardliner, Ersin Ta­tar, in the north of the island in October 2020 after massive in­terventions by Turkey in his favour. Backed by Ankara, Tatar continued to demand equal recognition of Turkish Cypriot sovereignty and thus a two-state solution as a precondition for the resumption of negotiations, thus destroying any pros­pect of substantive talks. Emboldened by the hardening of Turkish positions, the Greek Cypriot side now appeared more conciliatory and unequivocally returned to the internationally supported framework of a bi-communal, bi-zonal solution, ending a period of confusing signals regarding the framework for a settlement that had seriously undermined the credibility of outgoing Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades’ com­mitment to a solution to the Cyprus problem. 1 The”Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus(TRNC)” is only recognised by the Republic of Turkey. While for Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, Ersin Tatar serves as President of the TRNC, the international community considers him the communal leader of the Turkish Cypriots. Because the government of the Republic of Cyprus remains internationally recognised as the government of the whole of the island, the entire island is now considered to be a member of the European Union. However, the Acquis Communautaire is suspended in northern Cyprus pending a political settlement to the Cyprus problem(see Protocol No. 10 of the Accession Treaty). In October 2020, the Turkish side escalated the situation fur­ther by unilaterally opening parts of the fenced-off ghost town of Varosha under the administration of north Cyprus. Varosha, a Greek Cypriot suburb of Famagusta, had remained uninhabited since 1974 and was administered by the Turkish army, serving as a bargaining chip in the negotiations for a solution to the Cyprus problem. UN resolutions demand the handover of the territory to the UN and the return of its right­ful inhabitants. In the context of the opening of Varosha, the Turkish side indicated that it would accept the return of Greek Cypriot property owners if their claims were found valid by the internationally recognised Immovable Property Commit­tee in the north. The international community condemned the opening, since the territory would then be administered by the authorities in the north, which would contradict appli­cable UN resolutions. At the time of writing, about 3.5 per cent of the territory has been opened, but none of the inhab­itants have returned yet. Apart from the opening of Varosha, the confrontation about the hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation off the coast of the island remained the most dynamic and dangerous aspect of the Cyprus problem. In 2019, in response to the unilateral exploration activities of the Greek Cypriots and the regional cooperation of the Republic of Cyprus with Israel, Egypt and Greece on hydrocarbons, Turkey escalated the situation, claiming that its rights and the rights of Turkish Cypriots were ignored. First, Ankara started to drill in areas claimed by the Republic of Cyprus as its exclusive economic zone(EEZ) with the approval of the Turkish Cypriot authorities. Then Ankara signed an agreement with the government of Libya over the delineation of their respective EEZs and threatened to start drilling in areas claimed by Greece as its own EEZ. In 2022, the issue remained unresolved, but tensions continued to de­crease. Test drills in 2022 and steps to extract gas from the Aphrodite field were not answered by Turkish activities in the EEZ claimed by the Republic of Cyprus. Domestically, developments were shaped by the presidential elections in February 2023. Foreign Minister Nicos Chris­todoulidis resigned from his post in January 2022 to run as an 1