It allows significant segments of the political elite to avoid substantive questions and push developments closer to the 2028 election campaign
The meeting between Christodoulides and Erciyurman on August 26 concluded with two announcements. The first concerns the increase in the frequency of meetings between the two leaders to a weekly basis. The second concerns the announcement of the members of the Coordinating Committee of the Civil Society Advisory Body, an institution proposed as a channel for civil society participation in the resolution process.
In terms of communication, the message is that something is happening. However, what reality does this development reflect? The creation of yet another committee is part of a long tradition of institutional proliferation surrounding the Cyprus issue. Working groups, technical committees, confidence-building measures, civil society advisory bodies: the repertoire has been familiar for decades and is periodically refreshed without fundamentally changing the structure of the problem. The few functional and effective initiatives, such as the technical committee on cultural heritage, remain largely unknown to the general public, while serving as a reminder of the meager results of other, similar initiatives.
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
This proliferation of procedures serves as a substitute for political will. It gives the impression of progress without requiring answers to the questions that truly determine whether a solution will emerge: what kind of political equality, what form of governance, how power is distributed within a potential federal structure, who has a say—and to what extent—on issues of security and guarantees. Civil society committees, however well-intentioned they may be, are rarely connected to the broader social groups they are supposed to represent. They function more as a ritual of participation than as a genuine channel of influence on the substance of the negotiations.
The question that remains unanswered is whether this new phase differs substantially from previous ones. The positions of both sides regarding the nature of the solution remain largely where they have been in recent years. The Greek Cypriot side continues to insist on a federation with enhanced functional unity, while the Turkish Cypriot side, especially following Erhürman’s election, is moving toward a spectrum that extends to the two-state model, or at least a loose confederal arrangement. Without convergence on this fundamental level, the increase in meetings and the proliferation of advisory bodies seem destined to reproduce the same pattern: surface-level dynamism, stagnation at the core.
Through this interpretive approach, various objectives are achieved: toward our external interlocutors, we can argue that society is contributing to the effort; internally, the nature of the initiative allows it to be presented as a small positive step to those who support the federal solution and as a painless initiative to those who oppose it. Above all, however, it allows significant segments of the political elite to avoid substantive questions and push developments closer to the 2028 election campaign.
Nicholas Kyrakou is a lawyer.
