Bomb scare as House debates European Constitution

The President of the House of Representatives cut short the debate on the European Constitution just before noon, saying he had received a bomb scare.

“There has been a call of a possible bomb explosion,” House President Demetris Christofias said, asking members of parliament to leave the building until the police clear the scene.

Opposition DISY deputy Yiorgos Tassou was addressing the House session at the time.

He said that the plenary session, that was debating the new European Constitution since Wednesday, was interrupted at 11.55 am local time instead of at 1pm when MPs would have taken a break to resume at 4pm and to vote on the issue at 7pm.

The afternoon session will now start earlier at 3pm.

As reported earlier on www.financialmirror.com, the House is expected to approve the European Constitution today, despite opposition by the main coalition partner, the communist AKEL.

The first round of a debate took place on Wednesday. All speakers but the AKEL representative said they would approve the bill and single MP for the Environmentalists declared abstention.

AKEL parliamentary spokesman, Nicos Katsourides, said his party “which places national interest over and above class and social orientations” would not hesitate to take a different stance “if we believed that the non ratification of the Constitution would affect in a negative way the question of Cyprus.”

Cyprus would be the first E.U. member state to ratify the Constitution after the failure of EU leaders to approve it at their June summit two weeks ago.

Many speakers argued that provisions in the European Constitution could help find a political settlement in Cyprus, consistent with the EU principles of justice, freedom and respect for human rights, saying that Turkey, in its bid to join the Union, would also be asked to align its policies and attitude with the Constitution.