20363 - The natural gas extraction

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athena Kehagias

The extraction of natural gas in Cyprus is not merely symbolic.
It is a prerequisite for the solving of the Cypriot issue.
For so many years on, we hear that there are formal and informal negotiations, yet without any result on what should be done.
Now we are learning about the efforts made in 1983, in order to avoid a recognition of the occupied territories, as a State.
That means, that the decision of Turkey was not to be followed, and that there was a continuity in the two UN resolutions.
And we see how important these movements are, even today.
When we started talking about the Cypriot EEZ, no one payed great attention.
Neither for the establishment nor for the demarcations with Egypt, Lebanon and Israel.
When we started the drilling, nobody of course believed, that the deposit Aphrodite would have been proven to be marketable in 2015.
Yet that was the case, and with evident numbers at that.
Afterwards, no one was surprised by the fact that natural gas began to exist as a reference point during the negotiations.
Also, no one had figured out, that the liberation of the island has also an economic cost, which can be covered by the Cypriot EEZ, so as not to have a repercussion of the case of Germany’s reunification, which took 15 years of austerity, in order to balance the Western and Eastern economies of Germany.
The Cypriot EEZ is a tool for its liberation, but its activation will occur practically, right after the beginning of the first extraction of the Cypriot natural gas. The real negotiations must begin well after the utilisation of this phenomenon.