The Iran war has demonstrated to Cyprus that the EU was already an alternative defence union to Nato, the island’s president said in Brussels on Wednesday (18 March), even as the US president derided previous Western allies.
When Iran fired at Cyprus on 1 March and Cypriot president Nikos Christodoulides called for EU help “Greece, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands immediately reacted positively to my request and deployed means and personnel to enhance the defence and security of Cyprus,” he said at a think-tank event in Brussels on Wednesday.
“Cypriots will never, never, forget this act of solidarity in action, not just statements — it deeply touched my people,” he said at the European Policy Centre (EPC) meeting.
“We may not have triggered Article 42(7) — which states that if a member state is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other EU member states have an obligation to provide aid and assistance — but Cyprus essentially tested Article 42(7). And we did so successfully,” he added.
The EU-treaty article is a mirror image of the Article V mutual defence clause in the Nato treaty, of which Cyprus is not a member.
“We … gave flesh and bones to the [EU’s] mutual assistance clause,” Christodoulides said.
France, Greece, Germany, Italy, and Spain have sent warships and air-defences to Cyprus, after Iran fired two drones and two missiles in its direction because it hosted a British military base.
The Cypriot EU presidency has cancelled all EU meetings on the island until at least April due to air-traffic disruptions.
And the Cypriot president tried to minimise the economic damage being caused to his country by its proximity to the warzone.
“Cyprus remains a safe and stable operational hub for business, for tourism. We are in conditions of full normality in Cyprus,” he said in the EU capital on Wednesday.
“Cyprus is not, in any way, part of the conflict. We had a single, isolated incident with a drone at the British bases [at which Iran fired],” he added.
Nato crisis
Christodoulides spoke amid an ever-wider rift between US president Donald Trump and other Nato allies.
Trump has accused European powers of betraying him because they refused to join his attack on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said earlier in January the EU should “keep on dreaming” if it thought it could defend itself without the US.
And Christodoulides alluded to the Nato crisis in challenging Rutte’s view.
“I do not agree with my very good friend the secretary general of Nato, that European autonomy is unattainable,” he said at the EPC event.
“In the past days, Cyprus has in fact proven that European autonomy is both possible and real”, he added.
