In the European Union, Cyprus's problems are not new; the country has a long history of instability and war. Ten years later, the same debate is being held all over again, just from a different point of view. Cyprus is emblematic of this current financial crisis because the banking system is much bigger than GDP. Concerns about the sluggish economic performance aside, as well as the usual gap between northern and southern regions, people are ill at ease with the EU. Getting the European Union to finance a deficit is very tempting because it seems to be a politically and socially painless option, but can we count on the EU to devise such a smoothly running system? Cyprus’ case is interesting on many levels, from the debate concerning the limits of cohesion policy to the need of finding new solutions for helping the economies of the European periphery. It raises the question of whether a real fiscal and politic union is possible, in light of the actual geoeconomics and geopolitical dynamics between the EU, Turkey and Russia. The aim of this paper is to explore the possible mechanisms for a convergence and integration of Cyprus in order to go beyond fiscal burden sharing, and considers a new approach to reduce regional disparities that takes into consideration local details. Something considered to be an important starting point to paving the way to new policies and outlining strategies in the search for real convergence involving changes in the objectives of economic convergence.

Cyprus, the European Union and the recent crisis: inspiration for new processes of convergence or incentive for regional disparities?

EPASTO, Simona
2013-01-01

Abstract

In the European Union, Cyprus's problems are not new; the country has a long history of instability and war. Ten years later, the same debate is being held all over again, just from a different point of view. Cyprus is emblematic of this current financial crisis because the banking system is much bigger than GDP. Concerns about the sluggish economic performance aside, as well as the usual gap between northern and southern regions, people are ill at ease with the EU. Getting the European Union to finance a deficit is very tempting because it seems to be a politically and socially painless option, but can we count on the EU to devise such a smoothly running system? Cyprus’ case is interesting on many levels, from the debate concerning the limits of cohesion policy to the need of finding new solutions for helping the economies of the European periphery. It raises the question of whether a real fiscal and politic union is possible, in light of the actual geoeconomics and geopolitical dynamics between the EU, Turkey and Russia. The aim of this paper is to explore the possible mechanisms for a convergence and integration of Cyprus in order to go beyond fiscal burden sharing, and considers a new approach to reduce regional disparities that takes into consideration local details. Something considered to be an important starting point to paving the way to new policies and outlining strategies in the search for real convergence involving changes in the objectives of economic convergence.
2013
978-88-88692-88-3
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11393/216412
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