April 2004

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UN’S PLAN FOR CYPRUS WOULD ENABLE TURKISH TO BECOME EU OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

April 2004 – “The official languages of the United Cyprus Republic are Greek and Turkish. The use of English for official purposes shall be regulated by law.” Thus would be established by the Constitution of the United Cyprus Republic (Art. 9.1), as proposed by the UN. The constitutional text, along with several other laws and agreements, is included in Kofi Annan’s Plan, entitled “The comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem”, which will be subject to referendum on April 24. If Turkish Cypriots (north) and Greek Cypriots (south) vote ‘yes’, Turkish would then become an EU official language. According to the language regime set by the plan for a unified Cyprus, both Greek and Turkish would be the state languages, so that they would be used for drawing up legislative, executive, administrative and judicial acts and documents of the federal government; citizens would have the right to address the federal authorities in any of the official languages and to be addressed in that same language; and both official languages would be taught mandatorily to all secondary school students. As regards the implications for the EU language regime, the plan includes a “Draft act of adaptation of the terms of accession of the United Cyprus Republic to the European Union”, which provides that Turkish shall be an official and working language of the institutions of the European Union, “upon fulfilment of the necessary personnel and technical requirements”. Moreover, Kofi Annan’s plan also contains a “Federal Law on the Official Languages of the United Cyprus Republic”.