OPINION

Coming of age…

Once upon a time there was a country which (nearly) all other countries wanted to harm – especially those that pretended to be friends and allies. But thankfully this was not a credulous people. Leaders and citizens alike had grasped the conspiracy long ago and would proclaim night and day: «No to the EEC and to monopolies!» and «The EEC and NATO are one and the same!» And every time some representative of the big, bad West would arrive for negotiations, the press would portray him as a fool or a Turkophile. That was the gripe of the «ultra-anti-Greek» former EEC «foreign minister» Hans van den Broeck, who didn’t understand why he was treated in that way. «I am not a Turkophile,» he would insist. And the late Deputy Foreign Minister Yiannis Kranidiotis would appeal to his people to restrain their criticism. But no one listened to him – even he was suspect at the time… Today, not even two decades later and still in the hands of all those anti-Hellenes and bureaucrats in Athens, Hellenism is completing the most significant national victory in its recent history. Under current circumstances, the accession of Cyprus into the EU is even more positive than its potential union with Greece, and carries none of the risks of the latter eventuality. With its historic «joint» decision to accept Cyprus into the EU ahead of a settlement while resisting pressure from Ankara and Washington for Turkey’s accession to the union, Europe made its first major step toward coming of age…

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