Cyprus and EU

Cyprus European Union relations in the early days were largely influenced by the efforts of the United Kingdom to be a part of the EU. During the early 1960s, Cyprus showed an interest similar to the UK for the establishment of an Association Agreement with the EEC. However, then the UK application to the EU was unexpectedly halted the Cyprus interest in EU was also diminished until 1971. In that year the UK and Cyprus renewed their efforts to the EU. On 19 December, 1972, an Association Agreement was signed between Cyprus and the EU. The import of the signed documents was that the Customs Union of Cyprus and the EEC in two stages spanning 10 years.

This agreement was interrupted by the Turkish invasion that led to the occupation of 37% of Cyprus that completely disrupted the economy as well as the second stage of the Cyprus-EEC agreement. It took a long time and effort to complete the first stage and signing a protocol for the second stage (in Luxembourg on 19 October, 1987). As per this protocol, the Customs Union will be completed by 2003 and after that both the EU and Cyprus will be required to do away with all tariffs and quantitative restrictions on manufactured goods and several identified agricultural products.

Cyprus European Unions relations continued in this vein with Cyprus submitting another application in 1990 for full membership to the EU and the EC Commission responding to the application in 1993. The ECC replied that it had declared Cyprus as qualifying for full membership and is willing to start the process for the accession it would still have to wait for a resolution of the local situation in Cyprus. The EEC then offered to reassess the situation in 1995 in case there was no settlement.

The essence of all that was that the EEC conceded that it would not wait for some kind of solution to the internal problems of Cyprus but would instead rely on the tools provided from within the Association Agreement to work closely with the Cyprus government in order to take all economic, social, and political factors into consideration when moving towards complete integration of Cyprus into the EU. There have been several meetings between the EU and Cyprus government to this end.

The EEC also further appreciated the Cyprus European Union relations by focusing on the efforts of the UN to bring about a peaceful resolution of the Cyprus conflict and said that even if despite the efforts of the UN no solution was reached then the EEC would yet again reassess the situation and try to move forward.

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