Espen Barth Eide’s statements after his meeting with the
President of the Republic, at the Presidential Palace
(draft transcript)
It was a long meeting, a good meeting. We are preparing
tonight's leaders' meeting. I was with Mr Akinci yesterday and now with Mr
Anastasiades. We have a number of ongoing processes now on several fronts.
What I would like to highlight especially is the
economic issues related to a federal structure. Because we've been over the last
weeks having a number of meetings between economic experts on both sides with
European Commission, European Central Bank, IMF and World Bank experts on how to
make sure that a potential federal solution, if we finally get there, has
economic viability, credibility, strong institutions, and can build further on
the positive developments in the Cyprus economy, so that it will continue an
upward drive. This is absolutely possible but it's important that all aspects of
the solution reflect this understanding. So this is an example of many work
streams that are now ongoing which may seem to be on the practical side, but are
important as we are preparing a sort of more final political settlements
later.
Q: You said yesterday after your meeting with Mr Akinci that you
would like to see the process speed up in some areas .
A: That's just simply a reference to the fact that there
is a lot of work yet to be done. There are, as is well-known, some large
political issues, maybe not so many, but they are quite important, but then
there is a myriad of things which are not divisive in nature, where there isn’t
actually any disagreement between the sides but it has to be done. Because in
order to prepare for a viable settlement that is not only successful on the day
of the vote but also in the many many decades to come, we have to think about a
lot of practical issues. So those are the issues I was referring to. But I think
we are on a good track. There is shared understanding on which these issues are
and a lot of people, actually hundreds of people in different committees and
working groups are now engaged in trying to fill out the blanks in these
important areas. And what I think is of particular importance again is all the
issues related to making sure that we have an economically viable federation, a
real federation with a clear authority at the federal level and that there is
full understanding of what would be the relationship between the federal level
and the constituent state level, in order to avoid, for instance, unnecessary
duplication.
Q: We have the feeling that lately the Government is not
very happy with some statements you have made, that they feel that these
statements don’t reflect the correct state of negotiations.
A: I actually feel that what we are all saying is quite
compatible. I refer to Mr Anastasiades' statements a few days ago in Bulgaria,
where he said, I think very convincingly, that the international circumstances
align in such a way that they seem to support a solution in 2016. Both leaders
have publicly said that a solution in 2016 is clearly possible and both leaders
have stated their commitment and I have no other commitment (than) that of the
leaders, because this is owned by the leaders. I 've also been saying, for
instance at the Security Council a month ago, that there is a lot of outstanding
work and much of that work is exactly what we are now working on, so I think my
role now is to make sure that we are seeing progress in all these different
areas, so that the day may come where the leaders may chose to find the final
political settlement, based on various preparations. I don't have the sense that
we have a difference in opinion on where we are and where we are going.
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26 February 2016
