Prof.Dr. Georges Delcoigne
Vice-President Center for the Study a/International Relations and Strategic Studies Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Helsinki European Council of 10 and 11 December 1999 took a number of important decisions which should help to shape the future of the European Union. Among others, paragraph 9 of the Presidency Conclusions of Helsinki Summit referred to Cyprus issue:

"(a) The European Council welcomes the launch of the talks aiming at a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem on 3 December in New York and expresses ifs strong support for the UN Secretary-General's efforts to bring the process to a successful conclusion.

(b) The European Council underlines that a political settlement will facilitate the accession of Cyprus to the European Union. If no settlement has been reached by the completion of accession negotiations, the Council's decision on accession will he made without the above being a precondition. In this the Council will take account of all relevant factors. "

We believe that it would be interesting to have an "informal brainstorming" on Cyprus with the participation of distinguished scholars and experts working on the decades long conflict on the island This small booklet includes the papers presented to the session held on February 15th 2000 and the transcripts of the discussion which was held thereafter.

Before our session, a representative of the CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) kindly provided copies of their recent report on "The 'Cyprus Question': Reshaping community identifies and elite interests within a wider European framework" by Nathalie Tocci to the participants. According to the CEPS paper on Cyprus "on the basis of negotiating actors' interests analysed, a confederal arrangement could represent an initial step towards a settlement", (p.24). Indeed, Tocci states that "a unitary inter-communal state along the lines of the I960 Republic of Cyprus and the UN resolutions since 1974, would he both unviahle and undesirable, if one accounts for the matrix of elite positions, once one begins to foresee the likely consequences of its implementation. A solution based on a unitary sovereign state failed in 1963 and would be even more likely to do so today. 11 is therefore crucial to propose a settlement which is both viable in terms of an initial agreement and desirable in terms of its subsequent implementation" (p. 23). Thus, "the need for new perspectives on Cyprus" becomes obvious as the CEPS paper underlines that "a confederal arrangement could represent an initial step towards a settlement. " Like some of the papers presented during our session, the CEPS report states that a "confederal constitutional structure " promises to be a viable solution and "would also be desirable and preferred to the traditional UN approach to the conflict because it would both diminish potential for conflict during the initial stages of the settlement when goodwill and experience in cooperation are still low, and represent a fluid arrangement encouraging inter-communal contact to be followed by corresponding changes in governing arrangements".(p.37).

The CEPS paper also describes the need to include Turkish Cypriots in relations with the EU "as political equals". According to Tocci, it is imperative "to incorporate Turkish Cypriots in accession negotiations between Cyprus and the Union. This could be possible once an initial confederal arrangement is brokered and the Turkish Cypriot Administration is recognised as apolitical equal in accession negotiations and ultimately within the Union, "(p. 30).
There is no doubt that a short "afternoon session" on Cyprus problem, which occupied the international community since 1950s, is not sufficient to cover all the outstanding issues. The presentations by the distinguished scholars should, however, provide the reader "new perspectives" on Cyprus. Indeed, we were very fortunate to have Dr. Christian Heinze who served on the Supreme Constitutional Court of the Republic of Cyprus (1960-1963), Prof. Em. Clement Dodd, from School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London, who has published extensively on the Cyprus problem over the last decade. Professor Paul Taylor, Head of the International Relations Department of the London School of Economics, known for his consociation theories which may have relevance for Cyprus, Dr. Andrew Mango who reported and commented on the Cyprus conflict over the last four decades as the Head of the BBC French and South European Programmes and Professor Ergun Olgun who is Secretary-General of the President's Office in Northern Cyprus and teaches "conflict resolution" at the Eastern Mediterranean University of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus..