EU Justice Commissioner expects those responsible for the Cyprus investment program scandal to be punished
Statement by Aristos Damianou, AKEL Member of Parliament
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 7th March 2021, Nicosia
Today’s interview given by the EU Commissioner for Justice with “Phileleftheros” newspaper is indicative of the damage caused to the Republic of Cyprus’ image by the arbitrariness, interwoven interests and covering up of the scandals by the government ruling forces concerning the feast around the golden passports scheme.
EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders stresses the need to put an end to the issuance of “golden passports”, for independent investigations to be carried out and for those who violated the law to be punished, while referring poignantly to the sell-off of principles and values that breed corruption.
When AKEL was warning that a “golden passport” feast had been set up around the Cypriot investment program, the Anastasiades-DISY government was declaring “there is nothing in the program that is wrong”. Obviously Mr. Anastasiades doesn’t consider it wrong for his Ministerial Council to approve dozens of passports coming from applications from the law firm Nikos Chr. Anastasiades & Partners D.E.P.E. Nor obviously does Mr. Anastasiades consider it reprehensible for his Ministerial Council to approve passports from applications from the same law firm to a company in the Ayia Napa marina, where his son-in-law is one of the directors.
Mr. Anastasiades’ whole stance leads -unfortunately- to the degradation of institutions and political ethics. Citizens do not want the President of the Republic to provocatively ignore the conflict of interest and the institutional entanglement/interwoven interests.
