Tales from the Coffeeshop: Give her the job! Only Raouna can look after our EU interests

A FEW weeks ago our establishment had mentioned that the Prez would be looking for job to give the deputy minister of European Affairs, Marilena Raouna, whose contract would expire at the end of our triumphant presidency of the EU council. Instead of finding new employment for her, the Prez came up with the ingenious idea of extending her contract which expires in July, until the end of this year. The government submitted a bill, classified as urgent, to the House on Thursday that extended her tenure until the end of December. The only problem was that it was rejected by the majority in the legislature, with Akel and Disy voting against the extension on the grounds that they had been given no time to study the bill and discuss it at committee before it went to the plenum. Mini Me had instructions to go on the warpath over the rejection, claiming in his corny style that “the Republic’s vital strategic aspirations are being sacrificed at the altar of some people’s desire to prove they are in opposition.” Critical consultations were underway for the EU’s next multiannual financial framework, said Mini Me, implying that only Raouna had the “the knowledge, experience and relationships as well as the ability to intervene in an organised and effective manner” to secure Kyproulla’s interests. How were we getting funds from the EU over the past 22 years when Raouna was not fighting for our interests? MINI ME’s indignant rants did not end there. He also took exception to a Disy spokesman’s remark that we could survive without a deputy minister for European affairs. There were 22 EU states with such a “political structure” Mini Me said before adding sarcastically: “Cyprus does not need such a structure either, even though it is a country with a national issue, with critical European negotiations ahead of it and with the Cyprus problem’s European dimension gaining even greater importance.” If this structure is so important, why will it be extended by only five months? From what we hear, the Cyprus problem’s European dimension will gain even more importance in 2027, and we will have no Raouna structure to deal with it. Incidentally, does Mini Me need reminding that during the Nik I presidency when the present Prez was foreign minister, his better half Mrs Philippa had created her own EU structure (a small personal empire) within the foreign ministry, which handled all the government’s dealings with the Union. Why don’t they get her to do it again if the government is so keen on an EU structure. MY QUESTION is why a highly educated, intelligent and capable woman like Raouna, who could walk into any high-status job is depending on Prezniktwo to find her employment? With a law degree from Oxford, a postgrad degree from the LSE and a diploma from the Sorbonne, she would have had no trouble finding a well-paid job in the private sector, but instead she will be praying that Akel or Disy will have a change of heart next Thursday in order to vote through the bill to keep her in a job until the end of the year. After that, I am sure the Prez will be able to find her another job for which she will be over-qualified. WITH a little over 18 months left for the presidential elections, we have our candidate. Well, he is not exactly a presidential candidate yet, because he will have to win the backing of the Disy members who will choose their candidate by ballot for the first time. Lawyer Giorgos Pamborides, who had served as health minister in the Anastasiades government and won a seat in the House in the last elections, said on an Ant1 podcast that he would be challenging for the party’s candidacy for which he expected party leader Annita Demetriou and former party leader Averof Neophytou also to stand. To take this decision he said he asked himself if he thought he could become Prez of the Rep. “With all the respect and humility, I believe I have all those features required to serve as president,” he said. I have to say that humility is not something I have ever associated with Pamborides, but I admit I am not the best judge of character. APART from marketing himself as respectful and humble, Pamborides also presented himself as an outsider in Disy, who did not have the access to party mechanisms that Annita and Averof had. He also toyed a bit with victimhood, claiming that party officials were undermining him in the parliamentary elections. “Officials of the party were calling Disy voters and telling them not to vote for me. These things do not honour a democratic party,” he said. My only concern, if against all odds he is the Disy candidate, there will be even more billboards with his face than there were in the parliamentary election campaign, when there was no main street in Nicosia without a Pamborides poster. It was a bit of a ‘Big Brother is Watching You’ experience. I READ that questions are being asked of the Anti-Corruption Authority about the Australian lawyer, Gabrielle McIntyre that was hired to head the investigation of the Mafia State book. A Sigma TV report suggested that McIntyre may have known, Leto Cariolou, the lawyer representing the author of the book, both having worked at the international crimes’ tribunal. This would raise an issue of conflict of interest, which ironically was one of the offences in the book that McIntyre was investigating. Meanwhile the head of the Anti-Corruption Authority, former judge Haris Poyadjis appears to have gone into hiding, not shedding any light on the matter. He may have been unaware of a professional connection if it existed, so why has he declined to explain what process was followed for the hiring of McIntyre and who were the other candidates for the job, before she was chosen. For a Transparency Commissioner, Poyadjis is not being very transparent. IN LAST week’s edition we had an item about the mystery surrounding the Board of Peace meeting for Gaza that was held in our Kyproulla over two days and expressed our bewilderment about the government’s shocking decision to ignore it. A friend of our establishment, who was there, informed us that the meeting took place at Park Lane hotel in Limassol, but she saw no Cypriot representative and security was very low key. Former British PM Tony Blair was in the conference room and was seen twice entering the lift, avoiding wandering about in the lobby, where our informant was sitting. Blair’s security team, however, had lunch at a table next to where our informant was sitting drinking an overpriced Fredo espresso (€8). His security people all lunched on salad. Blair probably only hires vegetarians for his security. MOST news websites resort to click-bait, because this is the way to get traffic. Of the sites I follow, the champion click-baiter has got to be dear old Phil, which comes up with the most extraordinary headlines that end up being much more interesting than the actual story. On Thursday the Philenews website, which always has a sexed-up story about the weather, surpassed itself, with the following headline: ‘Winter setting: rains, storms, and probable hail in the weather forecast.’ I know there is climate change, but it has yet to reach such extremes that we have a ‘winter setting’ in July in Kyproulla. The report that accompanied the click-bait headline was rather disappointing. It said there could be “isolated showers and isolated storms inland, with hail possible.” The temperature in the winter setting on July 9 would reach 36 degrees (Celsius not Fahrenheit) inland, and 33 on the coast.