Did the scandals that saw the light of day mean the end of the innocence of the Cypriot society? I do not think so. Innocence, if it ever existed, has long since been lost. What is not lost is the desire for easy enrichment and convenience. It is neither Hercules who will clean the “stable of Augeia”, nor the populism that overflows on social media. The cleansing will come with small steps of modernization and reform. Otherwise, we are playing dangerously with our future.
The proposal in the White Paper on Pothen Esches, developed by a group with the participation of Nobel Laureate Professor Christoforos Pissaridis, may be one such reform. The same goes for the 11 proposals for an “honest state” of the well-known lawyer Achilleas Dimitriadis, but also the proposals of the Minister of Justice Emilis Giolitis last week. They are all steps in the right direction, if implemented. The procedures now are such that you can not distinguish between the one who tells the truth and the one who lies. We all know that it is difficult to prove what we saw on the screens, what we read in partner books and in articles by journalists. The sense of society is that no one is going to be persecuted, let alone condemned. Even the day we saw the Al Jazeera report, they looked us in the eye and all they told us was that they were the victims. They still tell us and laugh.
Would we have prevented all this if we had implemented a real Pothen Esches? Maybe we had caught some. Maybe they were scared, maybe others were spotted by the system and the issue ended before they reached the top. However, corruption is not just a matter of legislation. It is a matter of culture and mentality, it is a matter of state structures, but also of the productive model. An economy that cannot be productive and competitive can only operate parasitically and opportunistically. Whenever we choose not to disturb irrational privileges, whether they are business or trade union, we consciously or unconsciously choose a system of corruption. It is no coincidence that for seven years institutions and society turned a blind eye to “dirty” passports. Were it not for the pressure and charge accumulated by the pandemic and lockdowns, we might have overcome them more easily.
But, what was really the other choice we had as a country? Do we make reforms and harass voters and financial supporters? Certainly not everyone had the same benefits from “dirty” passports, however, as long as the system worked, the various castes could continue their counterproductive activities, maintain their fictitious consumption, and be allowed to return to their old, bad habits. The alternative would be to implement the memorandum to the end and carry out additional reforms of our own, which would touch everything. From how and what children learn in schools, to what system of government we will have and the responsibilities of the President. We would have to rethink our relationship with the environment, even our relationship with the Turkish Cypriots. We sold passports and for seven years we didn't have to think about anything. Tomorrow, if they are not passports, we will probably do something else to avoid our real responsibilities.
Until then, we will be in crisis. Political, economic, social and even geopolitical. We risk our role in the EU and put ourselves in the group of the troubled. Those who showed that they were not ready for European integration. We are not going to disburse a single cent from the Restructuring Fund if we try smart with the reforms. Europe will be just as tough on other gossip we dare. Whether it is in the supervisory context of banks or in the environment. They may not be able to expel us from the EU, but they may force us to leave on our own.
