Post-bailout Turkish talks for Cyprus?

Cyprus' Mavroyiannis, right, with EU's Lewandowsky during last year's budget talks

When Andreas Mavroyiannis was appointed the Greek Cypriots’ lead negotiator with the Turkish side of the island this month, many in Brussels took note. Mavroyiannis is not only Cyprus’ former ambassador to the EU, but he served as the island’s EU minister during its eventful EU presidency last year.

Although the Cypriot presidency received mixed reviews, thanks in part to ongoing upheaval back in Nicosia surrounding the country’s then-unfinished bailout, Mavroyiannis was widely viewed as a pro, winning praise in Brussels for his handling of highly-tendentious negotiations over the EU’s €1tn seven-year budget.

So if Mavroyiannis could handle 27 warring EU heads of state, surely his appointment was a sign of new Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades’ seriousness in tacking the 40-year division of the island, some reasoned. Anastasiades was one of the few Greek Cypriot politicians, after all, who backed the 2004 Annan Plan to reunify the island, and many EU officials have hoped the economic crisis brought on by the €10bn bailout might bring new momentum to finding a solution to the frozen conflict.

Well, not everyone agrees with that assessment – least of all Osman Ertug, the Turkish Cypriot official who will be Mavroyiannis’ chief interlocutor if and when negotiations reconvene.