Northern Cyprus trade ‘not under Parliament’s jurisdiction’

The European Parliament’s legal affairs committee has decided that MEPs do not have co-decision powers over a proposal by the European Commission to allow direct trade between the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus and EU member states.

The decision, taken last night (18 October), with 18 in favour, five against and one abstention, means that the Commission’s direct trade regulation is now solely in the hands of the member states.

No vote had been scheduled for yesterday’s session, but Klaus-Heiner Lehne, the centre-right German MEP who chairs the legal affairs committee, said MEPs should take a decision as a vote had been postponed three times.

Kurt Lechner, a centre-right German MEP who had written a report on the matter, said that using the Parliament’s powers over international trade would undermine the sovereignty of Cyprus.

Bernhard Rapkay, a centre-left German MEP who chairs the Parliament’s group for relations with the Turkish Cypriots, said that the vote was “ridiculous”. “I want law to be respected and [the Treaty of] Lisbon gives these issues co-decision and we are agreeing not to use this procedure,” he said.

He appealed to the committee to give members more time to study the opinion by the Parliament’s legal service on which Lechner’s report was based. Rapkay said that the opinion had been given to members only on Friday.

The advice by the Parliament’s legal service in essence accepted previous legal advice from the Council of Ministers that the regulation did not touch on a matter of international trade and that the Parliament therefore had no say over it.

Diana Wallis, a British Liberal MEP, said: “If we always followed our legal service, we would not be doing our job as politicians.”

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