CYPRUS: President to submit his ideas on a looser federation post-solution

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades will present a more detailed proposal concerning his ideas about a decentralised federation in post-settlement Cyprus, at Tuesday’s meeting of the National Council.

 The move towards a looser federation in a post-solution Cyprus has been criticised by some opposition parties as veering away from the core principles of the Cyprus problem and previous efforts for a strong centralised government.

Party leaders will now get to hear first-hand what the President has in mind and give their opinion.

Government spokesman, Prodromos Prodromou, has said that in view of the demand of the Turkish Cypriot side for one positive vote at every decision- making level, Anastasiades, suggested that “we could look into the possibility of a decentralized system” in a way that the central state will have the powers which are necessary in order to be a normal state.

Anastasiades himself has described his ideas as “food for thought.”

He and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci will have their first meeting on Friday inside the UN buffer zone since Cyprus talks crashed at a UN summit in Switzerland in July 2017.