VZCZCXRO9431
RR RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ RUEHROV
DE RUEHNC #0620/01 2121317
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 301317Z JUL 08
FM AMEMBASSY NICOSIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9019
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NICOSIA 000620 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE, EUR/ERA, EUR/PGI, PRM 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM CY
SUBJECT: CYPRUS STRIVES, HALFHEARTEDLY, TO MEET EU 
MIGRATION STANDARDS 
 
REF: NICOSIA 495 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Four years after joining the European 
Union, Cyprus has not fulfilled several key EU directives on 
asylum and immigration. Its implementation of the asylum 
reception conditions directive is subpar; for example: 
housing is inadequate, welfare distribution is spotty and 
access to the labor market is severely restricted.  An 
inefficient, overburdened Migration Service has proven unable 
to implement fully the common asylum procedures directive, 
and stiff RoC resistance to long-term resident standards has 
prompted the EU to threaten fines.  Cyprus has complied, 
however, with some directives regarding qualification for 
asylum, temporary protection for asylees, and subsidiary 
protection.  While Cyprus has succeeded in transposing many 
EU migration-related directives into national law, critics in 
the NGO community complain that it has failed to implement 
and enforce them, owing to foot-dragging, obstructionism, and 
occasional outright hostility to the interests of migrants. 
End summary. 
 
----------------- 
What Europe Wants 
----------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) The European Union has issued several directives on 
immigration and asylum since 2000, establishing member state 
minimum standards on asylum reception conditions, subsidiary 
protection for people fleeing war-torn countries, asylum 
processing procedures, and third-country national residents. 
The directives typically have a two-year deadline for 
adoption into member states' legal systems.  However, for 
southern EU states like Cyprus, Malta and Spain overwhelming 
numbers of migrants and asylum-seekers threaten the effective 
implementation of these standards. Responding to these member 
states' vocal calls for support, the EU has recently 
discussed increased "burden-sharing" on asylum and 
immigration -- a call to wealthier northern states, often the 
migrants' ultimate destination, to help out. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
Welcome to Cyprus: "unacceptable" reception conditions 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) The January 2003 directive on reception conditions 
calls for, inter alia, guaranteed access to education for 
underage asylum seekers, health care, an adequate standard of 
living and access to the labor market if a status decision 
has not been taken within one year.  According to UNHCR 
Associate Protection Officer Olga Komiti, reception 
conditions in Cyprus are unacceptable, do not meet directive 
standards, and represent Cyprus's greatest asylum policy 
shortfall.  Under the EU directive, "accommodation centers" 
(shelters) must meet minimum housing conditions that allow 
accord occupants an adequate standard of living.  Komiti 
argued, however, that Cyprus's only center, Kofinou, is an 
isolated encampment originally intended for resettlement of 
Roma that, despite improvements under a University of Nicosia 
program and a sympathetic director, is wholly inadequate for 
the island's needs.  Moreover, the facility is small and 
houses only women and families, leaving single men -- 99 
percent of asylum-seekers -- to live on the streets or with 
acquaintances who may exploit them. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Cypriot policy regarding asylum seekers' employment 
rights technically meets EU conditions: applicants may work 
after their first six months in Cyprus.  But because they are 
only allowed to labor in agriculture or animal husbandry -- 
sectors with just 300-400 vacancies, Komiti claimed -- many 
are driven into illegal, often exploitative work or seek 
welfare benefits instead.  Agricultural work conditions are 
poor and wages low, as the government ombudswoman observed in 
a 2008 report, but if an asylum-seeker refuses an available 
job in the sector, he may be cut off from state benefits. 
Both KISA, a migrants' rights NGO, and sources in Cyprus's 
large Filipino community note that Cyprus has no incentive to 
end this practice because it provides a steady flow of cheap, 
expendable labor to employers, a point seconded by an 
official in the Ombudswoman's office. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Despite EU-mandated guarantees of an adequate 
standard of living, asylum-seekers requiring welfare must 
navigate, often unsuccessfully, a difficult bureaucracy. 
UNHCR sources report that Cypriot Welfare Services requires 
valid addresses from welfare applicants -- impossible for 
many of the homeless male asylum-seekers.  Even those 
eligible for benefits receive their checks only sporadically. 
 
NICOSIA 00000620  002 OF 003 
 
 
 KISA noted that applicants sometimes did not receive 
scheduled checks for months; over one hundred affected 
asylum-seekers on June 25 conducted a loud protest in 
response. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
Flawed asylum procedures mean years in limbo 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) A report from the Dutch Embassy on asylum in Cyprus 
states that despite a December 2007 deadline, the 2005 EU 
directive on asylum procedures has not yet been incorporated 
into Cyprus law.  Komiti told us that the draft law has just 
reached parliament but is stalled there; she estimates its 
passage is a year away.  The directive calls for asylum 
status decisions to be made "as soon as possible," but 
Cyprus's 8,800-applicant backlog and years-long wait times do 
not approach this standard.  Head of Asylum Services Makis 
Polydorou acknowledged the backlog, but blamed it on 
widespread abuse of the system and Turkey's refusal to 
tighten border controls in the North (reftel).  Komiti said 
it is often those most in need of protection who wait the 
longest, as asylum officials rush to close "abusive" (likely 
fraudulent) cases and leave the more complex -- and possibly 
genuine -- cases in limbo.  The EU directive also requires 
that asylum-seekers have access to legal services; the Dutch 
note, however, that while most member states provide free 
legal aid, Cyprus does not.  Sources at KISA, St. Joseph's 
Center for Migrants, and UNHCR described several instances of 
lawyers taking advantage of asylum seekers, charging high 
fees for unnecessary services or offering to represent those 
whose cases have no chance for approval. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Furthermore, Chapter 5 of the directive states that 
asylum-seekers must have the right to appeal "before a court 
or tribunal," but Cyprus guarantees them appeal only before 
an administrative body, the "reviewing authority."  If denied 
at this stage, asylum-seekers may seek recourse at the 
Supreme Court, but this exposes them to further exploitation 
by lawyers.  While their cases are pending, they have no 
legal status in Cyprus. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
No home for you here: Push-back on long-term residents 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Critics claim the RoC is actively resisting granting 
long-term resident status, which another EU directive says 
countries must grant to immigrants with five legal and 
continuous years of residence.  In 2007, more than two years 
after the deadline for adoption, Cyprus passed the residency 
law.  Officials since have begun assessing applications, 
claimed a contact in the Ombudswoman's office, but government 
efforts to contravene the law have left it toothless.  KISA's 
Polycarpou told us that, in advance of the five-year 
residency law's passage, maximum work visa duration was cut 
from six years to four, with exceptions only for elder-care 
workers and employees of foreign diplomats.  This left most 
of Cyprus's migrant work force trapped, compelled either to 
return home before they could apply for long-term residency, 
or to stay illegally.  Furthermore, the government actively 
had tried to expel third-country nationals who would be 
eligible for residency, until a recent report from the 
Ombudswoman detailing these efforts brought widespread EU 
condemnation. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Officials are often reluctant to grant residency or 
citizenship to foreigners who have been here for years. 
UNHCR's Komiti revealed that a Bosnian refugee living in 
Cyprus since 1992, whose children "were more Cypriot than 
Bosnian," had attempted to apply for naturalization.  The 
government responded by questioning why he hadn't been sent 
home to Bosnia yet. 
 
¶10. (SBU) A January Supreme Court decision further dimmed 
hopes for an equitable and effective residency policy, 
critics maintained.  In Motilla vs. the Republic of Cyprus, 
the Court ruled that a domestic worker who had stayed legally 
in Cyprus for five years was not eligible for long-term 
residency because she did not have good reason to expect 
long-term residency when she arrived in Cyprus.  In effect, 
this decision excludes almost all migrant workers from 
applying for long-term residency, and drew swift condemnation 
from KISA, other NGOs, UNHCR, and the Ombudswoman's office. 
The EU is studying the decision's compliance with pertinent 
directives but has not taken any action yet. Interior 
Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis is considering revising the 
 
NICOSIA 00000620  003 OF 003 
 
 
long-term residency law to bypass the Supreme Court decision, 
but KISA tells us that Sylikiotis often encounters 
substantial resistance from figures in the labor and finance 
ministries, as well as within his own. 
 
--------------------------------------- 
Bureaucracy, xenophobia hinder progress 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) The gap between EU standards on migration and 
Cyprus reality has several explanations.  Pre-accession 
enthusiasm for adopting EU laws has faded since Cyprus 
achieved membership, both on policy grounds and due to the 
sheer volume of legislative work required, a particularly 
heavy burden on small states.  Lawmakers seem to be in no 
hurry to transpose migration-related EU directives into 
Cyprus law, as evidenced by the two-year wait for the 
residency requirement directive and the lack of movement on 
asylum procedures.  Critics also lament RoC implementation 
and enforcement.  UNHCR's Komiti, a Greek Cypriot herself, 
lamented that Cyprus had "beautiful (but unimplemented) 
laws."  Others decried that asylum applications and forms 
often disappeared, a product of an unwieldy and overwhelmed 
migration system in which multiple ministries and departments 
have a role.  Their directors often have broad discretion to 
obstruct the passage of laws or progress on individual cases, 
contacts argue.  With this discretionary power, authorities 
create an opaque, constantly changing system, issuing 
"directives" and "decrees" that further obfuscate an already 
confusing process for third-country nationals. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Though RoC officials complain, with some 
justification, that they lack the resources to meet EU 
standards on immigration and asylum, EmbOffs heard repeatedly 
that officials were often apathetic or outright hostile to 
the interests of third-country nationals. "It's not a money 
issue, it's a mentality issue," an official in the 
Ombudswoman's office told us. "It's hard for Cypriots to 
think of foreigners as residents, not just tourists or 
workers." As with so many issues on the island, the Cyprus 
Problem is to blame, contacts claimed:  Greek Cypriots have 
historically viewed a minority's gain in rights as their 
loss, and resistance to easing permanent residency and 
naturalization rules is rooted in fear of having to grant 
mainland Turkish "settlers" in the north citizenship under an 
eventual Cyprus settlement. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) UNHCR's Komiti maintained that Cypriot asylum and 
immigration officials erect countless barriers to counter 
"abuse," neglecting the interests of those genuinely in need. 
 She lamented that the RoC was pursuing a policy based on 
arrests and detention of illegal immigrants, even asylum 
seekers, and noted that only fixing the broken system at its 
roots, not increasing detentions and expulsions, would deter 
migrants from arriving on the island  Xenophobia plagues 
government officials as well as Cypriot rank-and-file, some 
critics claim:  Polycarpou of KISA revealed that one welfare 
services employee feared handing out benefit checks to black 
men. 
 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) A small EU member state on the edge of Europe and 
surrounded by larger, poorer nations, Cyprus undoubtedly 
faces great difficulties dealing with migratory flows.  Our 
conversations suggest it is not yet making a good faith 
effort to meet that challenge, however.  More resources, 
particularly in the understaffed and overworked Asylum 
Services office, would help in reaching compliance by 
smoothing the bureaucracy, but will not overcome seemingly 
deep-set government resistance to implementing directives. 
Political apathy and strong interests in maintaining a cheap 
labor supply also contribute to thwarting reform efforts, 
Thankfully, there are reasons to believe the situation for 
migrants here may improve somewhat in the future.  Interior 
Minister Sylikiotis is a founding member of KISA and widely 
viewed as genuinely sympathetic to migrants' rights, even 
though he faces challenges from outside and within his 
ministry.  And longtime critics of the RoC migration system 
claim that recent efforts to train government officials 
dealing with migration issues, especially police, are 
beginning to bear some fruit. 
SCHLICHER