Paper Titles & Abstracts

The EU has strongly discouraged any notion of recognizing Northern Cyprus independence. Instead, it encouraged the UN sponsored Cyprus talks aimed at a unified federal state in Cyprus. Subsequently, the EU claimed to have backed the so-called Annan-Plan that would have resolved the long-standing conflict on the island. Following the diplomatic disaster that came with the rejection of the Annan-Plan on behalf of the Greek Cypriot population, the EU continues to support a solution based on the parameters of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation. However, EU membership of the Greek-Cypriot administration as one of the parties to the conflict made a "neutral" policy approach on behalf of the Union almost impossible.A similar problem persists for the EU as part of the conflict in Kosovo. While the majority of its members do recognize the independence of that region, some others, including the Republic of Cyprus, are strongly opposed. This has mainly domestic regions, as for example Cyprus and Spain regard the Kosovo affair as a dangerous precedent for de-facto or would-be break away regions in their own countries. As a result the EU is not able to formulate a coherent policy on Kosovo. That is especially disturbing as the EULEX-Mission is still on the ground.This paper shall examine how the EU is coping with internal divergences toward break away regions in both cases. It will particularly been analyzed, how economic push and pull factors, like Serbian EU-membership aspirations and the Cypriot economic crisis effect EU institutions and individual member state positions on the issue.