YOU DO not have to be a Kyproulla-weary cynic to have a laugh whenever you hear our wise leaders talking about their grandiose energy plans which all have one thing in common – they never progress beyond the big words phase.
Over the years we have heard about trilateral energy alliances, liquefaction plants, an array of pipelines, one going as far as Greece and gas marketing deals – all of which have amounted to a big zero. Despite finding gas in our EEZ more than 10 years ago we have still not seen a cubic inch of it on the island.
Even our efforts to import gas for our power stations – an admission that we may never be able to use our own gas – has been a spectacular failure, because the government wisely gave the contract to a consortium that had never set up a gas terminal and yet it was in the national interest.
With such an immaculate record of failure, what are the odds that the Great Sea Interconnector, which will supposedly connect our electricity grid to that of Greece, will end in tears and losses of hundreds of millions of euros?
OUR LEADERS, however, remain optimistic, as was evident at the 12th Energy Symposium held in Nicosia and titled, without a hint of irony, ‘The big decisions for energy’.
It was after all a symposium, at which people can say anything they like, produce large quantities of natural and unnatural gas, have it liquefied and export it to Asia.
Energy Minister George Papanastasiou, who comes up with a new idea every week, said the aim was for Kyproulla to become a point of export of LNG from the deposits of Eastern Mediterranean. How we will get it here so as to export it, he did not say.
House president and Disy chief, Annita Demetriou, who is increasingly talking like a member of the government, said Kyprioulla had all the pre-requisites to become an energy hub in the East Med.
Prezniktwo outshone both of them by revealing the interest of energy giants from Gulf countries to participate in blocs of the Cypriot EEZ. And to emphasise his commitment to the tradition of the ‘words only’ energy policy he added: “This interest was a vote of confidence for the prospects of the Cypriot EEZ which, in parallel, there may be other political and diplomatic dimensions.”
THE GREEDIEST doctors in the world, who take an oath to moolah before the Cyprus Medical Association allows them to practise on the island of selflessness, are displaying their main specialty again – blackmailing the state into giving them more moolah.
On Thursday after a meeting with Okypy, the unlikeable leader of their union, Dr Sotiris Koumas, announced that a 48-hour strike would be staged in the last week of the month at all public hospitals, including the A&E departments, because they want more money than is being offered to them as part of the incentive scheme of 2023.
Okypy offered the lump sum of €2.5 million, proposed by the independent audit firm brought in by both sides to calculate what is owed, but Pasyki wants €4.5m and is threatening to cause two days of chaos at hospitals if it does not receive it.
What a pathetic bunch of cheap, money-grabbing characters, government doctors are. They are on average salaries of €150,000 a year – more than doctors are paid in most EU countries – but have no qualms about punishing patients to grab an extra grand for 2023.
FOREIGN Minister Constantinos Kombos is really expanding Kyproulla’s diplomatic footprint. On Tuesday he met the foreign minister of Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Bayramov, on the sidelines of the COP29 conference in Baku.
It was the first ever meeting between foreign ministers of the two countries, Mini Me informed us with a tweet on ‘X’ saying there was a “sincere discussion of issues on which different approaches exist”.
Kyproulla has no diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan which is something of a Turkish satellite, but Mini Me believes that contact and every channel of dialogue are of use and have self-evident significance. Not to mention the expansion of our diplomatic footprint.
PREZNIKTWO was also at COP29 and pledged that despite its small carbon footprint, Kyproulla would contribute to the reduction of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, presumably when it finally gets its act together and imports natural gas for its mazut-fuelled power stations.
He was unable to suppress his delusions of grandeur, with Mini Me telling the conference: “As regards Cyprus’ regional action, the president of the republic said that recently, the initiative of the Cyprus Republic for facing the consequence of climate change in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, has been re-activated and is aimed at developing synergies for the mitigating of consequences through inter-frontier actions.”
We are all proud that we also have a regional role in the fight against climate change, but what I would like to know is when our initiative was first activated in order for it to have been recently re-activated. And what inter-frontier actions were taken and synergies developed in the initial activation of Kyproulla’s regional initiative?
AFTER THE meeting with the unnamed ‘close associate’ of Donald Trump at the presidential palace, the Prez announced that he would speaking on the phone to Republican senators on Saturday, although he did not specify with how many.
He said: “we know the new US Secretary of State (Marco Rubio) very well and it was important that he co-signed the law proposal on the Eastern Mediterranean.” It’s good that he knows Rubio very well, but this was not all. The prez said Rubio “knows well the role of the Cyprus Republic, the cooperation with all the countries of the region (note: Israel) and I am certain that our cooperation, as it has developed in this period, will be strengthened even more.”
He also engaged in some name-dropping. “Recently I had a telephone conversation with the former Secretary of State, Mr Pompeo,” he said. Pompeo is yesterday’s man and will have no post in the new administration but mention of his name was bound to impress us natives.
BEFORE Costas Kadis had been officially announced as the Commissioner of Fisheries of Oceans (this will happen on November 21), he had a major falling out with the Prez over the person to appoint as the head of his office in Brussels.
The Prez wanted him to appoint the son of a former Strovolos mayor who, with his dad, had actively supported him during the election campaign. The Prez has made a point of rewarding everyone who campaigned for him with an appointment somewhere. The son of the ex-mayor must have been a zealous campaigner for the Prez to want to give him a very well-paid and high-status post at the Commission.
Only problem was that Kadis refused to play ball. He wanted a trusted associate, whom he had worked with for years, as the head of his office and made it clear. The Prez then tried to persuade Kadis to give the supporter another post in his Brussels office, but again he was snubbed, the commissioner wanting to have people of his choice working for him.
I do not know how this falling out will develop, even though there are still a few days left for Kadis to bow to presidential pressure.
PREZNIKONE was back in the limelight this week, appearing on the imaginatively named Tsouroullis Uncensored podcast, to whine because his successor did not give him enough credit for his 10-year rule and for taking ownership for many of the projects his government had set in motion.
He also bemoaned the fact that his protégé’s minions blame him for the termination of public projects that had gone wrong. More importantly, however, he revealed that his book, ‘The Sycophant’, about his nemesis Makarios Drousiotis is almost finished. He was currently writing the epilogue.
The vital question Tsouroullis omitted asking the ex-prez was whether he had changed his hairdresser or hair dye. Apart from the full head of hair and absence of a single white hair, which is nature-defying for a man close to 80, the hair seemed to have changed colour from black to chestnut. Unless of course it was the lighting that was responsible.
I WAS shocked to see so many Kyproulla flags during the protest marches of the students on Friday to condemn the anniversary of the declaration of the pseudo-state. I failed to spot a single Greek flag in any of the pictures I saw. I can only speculate that now Kyproulla has an upgraded geostrategic role, a large diplomatic footprint, a regional role in the fight against climate change, is on the verge of becoming an energy hub and our Prez gets invites to the White House, our youths have become proud of their country and their flag.
