Cyprus partition: Why is it suddenly on everyone’s lips?

 * Would be worse for the economy than unification *

By Fiona Mullen
Director, Sapienta Economics Ltd

Three days after 24 April 2004, when the referendum on the Annan Plan was rejected by 76% of Greek Cypriots and accepted by 65% of Turkish Cypriots, I wrote the following in this newspaper about what might happen the next time there is a vote:
“Greek Cypriots could therefore be asked not just to choose between a solution and more of the Cyprus problem, but between a solution and the end of the Cyprus problem: legally recognised partition, with only compensation offered to those dispossessed of their land.”
My reasoning at the time was that the international community was extremely peeved with the Greek Cypriots (and vice versa, of course), so there would be little tolerance for just more status quo the next time there was a vote.
In the ten years since I wrote that I have often thought that I was wrong about that prediction. Thanks primarily to EU membership and UN Security Council Resolutions, to this day, there is still no call from any official quarters for partition.
But all of a sudden the word ‘partition’ is on everyone’s lips…

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