Cypriot MEPs demand more measures against Turkey after State of EU speech

Two Cypriot members of the European Parliament reacted to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the European Union address by demanding that the bloc take more defensive measures against Turkey, citing the fact that she had said that “Europe will defend each and every square metre of its territory”. Disy’s Loucas Fourlas said at the day’s plenary session in Strasbourg that he “welcomed” that remark, before criticising that “you spoke about Greenland, you spoke about Ukraine, yet you did not say a word about Cyprus”. “So, I will ask directly, and I want an answer from you. Will any aggression by Turkey against Cyprus or Greece be treated as an attack on European territory? Yes or no? A very simple question, a very simple answer,” he said. He then asked whether potential future Turkish aggression would “mean the immediate invocation of Article 42.7 and an immediate European response”, with Article 42.7 of the Treaty of the European Union, which is commonly known as the Lisbon Treaty, known to be the EU’s mutual defence clause. “We are not asking for a favour, we are asking for what is self-evident,” he said. Elam’s Geadis Geadi, meanwhile, offered praise for the fact that von der Leyen had called for the EU to have its own equivalent of Nato’s Article 4, which states that its members will “consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened”. He also offered acclaim for von der Leyen’s declaration that the EU will “defend each and every square metre of its territory”, before suggesting that this is not the case in practice. “At the very moment you made that statement, Turkish drones and fighter jets were harassing civilian flights near the Larnaca and Paphos airports in Cyprus. They are using the occupied territories of Cyprus to harass passenger aircraft, I repeat, passenger aircraft,” he said. He added that Turkey is “endangering the lives of thousands of innocent people”, before asking, “will you continue to stand idly by in the face of these provocations, still calling Turkey a partner, or will you move from words to action?”. “We are tired of the hypocrisy. Enough with the double standards,” he said. Von der Leyen plans ‘new European security strategy’ Von der Leyen had said on the matter of Europe’s defence architecture that she plans to work with the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas to develop a “new European security strategy”. “We already have many tools, and we are strengthening our work with Nato, but our doctrine, our institutions, and our decision-making have not kept pace with the new reality,” she said. “Our systems were made for a different world,” she added. “They are driven by well-intentioned attempts at consensus and compromise.” She warned however that following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the outbreak of a conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran in more recent years, “we need to consider whether they are still fit for purpose”. “For instance, Europe needs its own counter-hybrid playbook. We urgently need a consensus on how to respond to certain incidents; those which fall below armed aggression but clearly threaten our national security. In other words, a mechanism to flank Nato’s Article 4,” she said. She said that such a mechanism would act as an “emergency security protocol”. “When triggered by one member state, all member states would convene to coordinate a European response, to deter further escalation, and to mitigate the impact.”