The Anastasiades-DISY government pretends it doesn’t understand
Article by Stefanos Stefanou, AKEL C.C. Spokesperson
Sunday 30th August 2020, HARAVGI newspaper
The matter is simple. Had the Anastasiades-DISY government not turned the investment for citizenship program into a business granting “golden passports”, our country wouldn’t have been shamed internationally. That’s the essence that the government pretends not to understand.
Cyprus has for some time featured in articles in global news agencies and renowned European newspapers as a money laundering paradise and a haven for fraudsters and corrupt people. And, unfortunately, similar conclusions are repeated in Reports released by the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the International Crime and Corruption Observatory and other organizations.
On the occasion of what is being said around the world about Cyprus, there was often a discussion domestically about the quality and content of the Investment Program. The public debate was a few times transferred to Parliament on the demand of opposition parties. All through this entire debate, the government refused to acknowledge the problem. The President of the Republic’s reaction to the criticisms made by the European Commission against Cyprus in relation to the Program was typical. He attributed them to expediencies and interests, denying that there was a problem. On the same wave length, his former Finance Minister Haris Georgiades, who in 2019 stated that “the scrutiny exercised is strict which is why to date no case whatsoever has emerged with a person who has been naturalized under this Program.”
That was the government’s attitude. It was refusing to correct the problems and it saw everywhere expediencies and interests being served seeking to hurt Cyprus; expediencies and interests certainly do exist. However, the government, by turning the Program into a business for the mass granting of “golden passports” gave excuses and pretexts for Cyprus to be vilified internationally, without doing anything to protect it.
“We have taken corrective measures,” the government ruling forces are saying now. The reality is that some corrective measures have indeed been taken which are inadequate in our view – too late and forced under the great pressure exerted by the opposition. The changes were made this year, shortly before the Parliament closed for the summer holidays. However, any corrective actions do not guarantee that the abuse of the Program will not continue. To correct the problems and restore the Cyprus’ name internationally, it is a precondition and a prerequisite for the government to demonstrate the appropriate political will and act with determination.
The government’s current attitude and the way it is handling the issue of Al Jazeera’s revelations raises great doubts as to whether it really has the political will to take decisive action to stamp out the greed, abuse and non-transparency that accompany the Program.
The government has not changed anything in its stand and approaches. It continues to deny that there is a problem and to see expediencies that want to hurt Cyprus. It continues to accuse all those asking for explanations that they are promoting expediencies and other alterior interests.
The culmination of this attitude was the press conference given by the Minister of Interior. To embellish the situation he employed misleading references (putting in the same bag the number of naturalizations with regards the granting of passports with the total number of naturalizations in Europe). He attacked the chairman of the three-member committee set up to investigate all cases where passport were granted under the Program and again attacked the opposition making a special reference to AKEL. This is what the government does, when the facts reveal the failures of its policy, it shifts responsibilities on to AKEL!
At the same time as the government is insisting that there is no problem, the Commission once again rang the alarm bell for our country, demanding from Cyprus that it take drastic measures on the problematic naturalizations, noting that it is considering legal measures on the Cypriot program. It is curious to see how the government will react to the new warnings: will it act to address the problems or will it talk – yet again – about expediencies and interests that want to hurt Cyprus?
It is the responsibility, first and foremost, of the government to protect our country’s interests. However for this to happen, the government must put the interests of Cyprus above everything else and stop shifting its own responsibilities on others.
