Active PCC summer

For those of you who think that our colleagues in Cyprus sleep during the summer (not that the recent record breaking heatwave, with temperatures upwards of 46,5 degrees, hasn't invited it), you need to follow the local newspapers more carefully. The report The Day After III: The Cyprus dividend for Turkey and Greece was launched on 21 July. It is written by a team of three economists - Özlem Oğuz Çilsal, Praxoula Antoniadou Kyriacou and Fiona Mullen – also known as The Three Ladies. The report demonstrates, through economic analysis, the massive benefits that both Greece and Turkey could reap from a settlement in Cyprus. The Cyprus Weekly devoted a full page article to the report. A front page article had earlier appeared in the Cyprus Mail. This was the second of two report launches this summer. The other report, Media Narratives, Politics and the Cyprus Problem (authored by Christophoros Christophorou, Sanem Sahin, and Synthia Pavlou) was launched on 29 June; it too generated considerable local interest.

We have also initiated a review of the PCC, with a view to inform strategies for the future. We now have a very good team in place. Marit Haug, senior researcher at NIBR, and Peter Loizos, professor emeritus at LSE, will conduct the review. They will start their work in mid-September, when I will join them and the full PCC staff for a retreat, and they will conclude their work within the end of the year. I am glad that we have been able to recruit such a competent team for the review, which I think will be tremendously important for documenting the PCC’s achievements and identifying the possible ways forward.