Will Cyprus have to choose between Europe+ and US-Russia?

Stuck again between a rock and a hard place

Image source: Shutterstock.

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Just a few short weeks ago, I wrote an article saying that the Republic of Cyprus’ tilt towards the US was irreversible. You can see from the photo on that article that this was still in the Biden era, and thus political light years away from today.

In the short term the relationship is still going fine. The US embassy in Cyprus has posted photos on X/Twitter talking of naval forces training together. As far as anyone knows, the US is still planning on helping to upgrade the naval base in Mari and the Andreas Papandreou airbase in Paphos. The US President, Donald Trump, also dismissed rumours that were circulating about ordering the closure of the Alexandropoulos base in Greece, which might also have had a ricochet effect on Cyprus.

In the long term I still think that Cyprus has definitively chosen “the West” over other options. But how “the West” is defined for Europeans has undergone a rapid re-definition since the Munich conference on 14 February, in which the US vice-president, JD Vance, shocked European leaders by saying that what he sees as Europe’s restrictions on free speech and what Europe sees as curbs on hate speech were a bigger threat to Europe than Russia or China.

Mr Vance also met with the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD), only a week ahead of Germany’s legislative elections. This followed a video attendance at an AfD conference of Mr Trump’s de facto chief money enforcer, Elon Musk, in late January.

This all came at a time of other shocks, like Mr Trump trying to broker a deal on Ukraine with Russia without consulting the Ukrainians; calling Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a dictator; blaming Ukraine for Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022; and joining Russia to vote against a UN resolution condemning it. And these are only some of the Europe-related developments. I am sure you have heard about the many other unprecedented executive orders, threats to take territory and other about-turns in policy.

In my opinion, Europe moved swiftly into action. (For a great write-up on exactly how, see this Substack post by Minna Ålander, research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.) By 19 February France’s president, Emmanual Macron, had convened two meetings of “Europe+”: most EU countries plus non-EU NATO members like Norway and the UK, as well as Canada. Le Monde reported that Cyprus attended the second meeting via video.

By 23 February, the incoming German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, was talking about the need for “real independence” from the US and by 25 February he was responding to questions about whether he would change the constitution to be able to afford it.

The Cyprus conundrum: which way will they go?

For the Republic of Cyprus, this must all feel like déjà vu. For most of the post-independence period the Greek Cypriots have trodden a fine line between East and West, between areas of Russian influence and areas of US influence. As explained in my January article, this has only changed rather recently.

But now they find themselves back at square one, having to choose, only this time between Europe+ and a potential new US-Russia alliance. Which way will they go?

In the short term the Republic of Cyprus will try to keep everyone happy. But just as in the Ukraine war, it will ultimately have to take sides.

I think that we can already see which way it will choose. Cyprus attended the second meeting hosted by Mr Macron and at the UN it voted with the EU on condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

At the same time, there will doubtless be some, especially those who lost business from sanctions on Russia, who will be tempted to go back to the old, quick-buck habits that brought the wrath of the EU and the US as we once knew it down upon this wee small economy.

There will be those, perhaps on the left, who see an opportunity to go back “home” into the arms of Russia.

And then there will be others, who will take a hard look at the geography, the tens of thousands of Turkish troops that are still in the north, and ask themselves which side they would want to bet their life on.

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