Day: August 9, 2022

Greek authorities were in “full readiness” on Tuesday as a new Turkish drillship, Abdulhamid Khan was expected to set sail for exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, around noon.

The drillship’s exact destination is expected to be revealed at a ceremony in Mersin.

The Greek authorities, are in full readiness and have already recorded the limited mobility, with two supply ships and two auxiliary ships of the Turkish navy rushing on Monday to the port of Tasoukou, where the Abdulhamid Khan is anchored.

Although it is not yet known where the searches will take place, pending the issuance of a Navtex, Athens is considering two scenarios.

The first is for the drillship to move between Turkey and the northern coast of the Republic of Cyprus and the second is for it to attempt to repeat the route followed by the Oruch Reyes in 2020.

In other words, to proceed to the international meeting point of the EEZs of Greece, Cyprus and Egypt and drill between Rhodes, Crete and Karpathos, putting into effect the illegal Turkish-Cypriot memorandum.

Athens, however, has signaled that it is determined not to accept any challenge to its sovereign rights and has made the situation known to its allies, who in turn have made supportive statements in the past twenty-four hours.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Turkey does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member since 2004, and considers a portion of the island’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as its own or belonging to the illegal regime, set up in the northern Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus.

Ankara sent on several occasions its seismic research vessel “Barbaros” to Cyprus’ EEZ, following the Republic of Cyprus’ decision, in 2011, to start exploratory offshore drilling. After May 2019, two Turkish drill ships, “Fatih” and “Yavuz”, conducted unauthorised hydrocarbon drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean, at times in areas licensed by Cyprus to international energy companies. A third ship, “Kanuni” was eventually sent to the Black Sea, while Turkish officials announced that the country’s fourth ship, “Abdülhamid Khan” prepares to search for natural gas in the Mediterranean in August 2022.

In the past, the European Council called on Turkey to abstain from renewed provocations or unilateral actions in the Eastern Mediterranean, in breach of international law. The EU also expressed determination to use the instruments and options at its disposal to defend its interests.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The 2022 Commonwealth Games came to an end on Monday evening in Birmingham, with Cyprus securing the 16th position among 72 countries.

The Cypriot team will return home with 11 medals, 2 gold, 3 silver and 6 bronze, an outcome which is deemed as very satisfactory, given that during these Games there were no shooting sports, where Cyprus excelled with medals during previous Commonwealth Games.

Georgios Balarjishvili won the gold in judo in the 66kg category, as did Ilias Georgiou who won the gold medal in gymnastics. Anna Sokolova secured two silver medals in rhythmic gymnastics, and Sokratis Pilakouris one silver in gymnastics. The six bronze medals were won by Alexandros Poursanidis in hammer throw, Anna Sokolova in rhythmic gymnastics, the men’s team (Marios Georgiou, Ilias Georgiou, Georgios Angonas, Sokratis Pilakouris and Michalis Chari) in gymnastics, and three by Marios Georgiou in gymnastics.

The Cypriot team has also had opportunities for more medals in rhythmic gymnastics, beach volley, and judo, while, it secured high rankings in events with many participants such as in cycling, it participated in the finals in athletics, and saw individual performances such as in swimming.

On the other hand, no one can claim that there have not been unfortunate or even negative results that brought disappointment to both the athletes and members of the team, as they were expecting better performances.

Overall, however, the Cypriot mission can be described as successful. Head of the Cypriot team Giorgos Papageorgiou told CNA that they had set four targets before the Games, which have all been successfully achieved.

Papageorgiou said that the first goal that was set concerned the off- and on-field behaviour of both the athletes and all members of the team. As he said, there have been no complaints on behalf of the organisers, and expressed his satisfaction for the behaviour of the Cypriot team.

The second goal he said, had to do with doping and noted that doping tests were carried out and all came out negative for the Cypriot medalists, so this goal was also a success.

The third aim, he said, was to bring the members of the mission closer and added that “indeed, there was definitely a family atmosphere and we all cheered on the athletes’ successes and were saddened by their failures.”

Regarding the fourth target, ie the medals, Papageorgiou expressed great satisfaction saying that “a small island of one million population has managed to take the 16th place among 72 countries, with eleven medals, two gold, three silver and six bronze.”

He thanked everyone who contributed to the success of the mission, the athletes and their coaches, the athletes’ parents, the members of the Federations, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth, the Ministry of Finance, the Cyprus Sports Organisation, the sponsors of the Cyprus Olympic Committee, as well as CyBC and CNA for covering the Games.

The English organisers have proven that they are excellent in this field. The 22nd Commonwealth Games can be described as perfect in all sectors, in terms of organisation, timing, security, facilities for athletes, spectators and journalists, sports facilities.

Birmingham handed over the Commonwealth Games mantle to the 2026 host, Melbourne.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

President Anastasiades congratulated on Tuesday the athletes that participated in the national delegation at the 22nd Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. He particularly praised the two “gold” athletes, Elias Georgiou and Giorgos Balarjisvili, for their achievement.

In a social media post today, the President of the Republic congratulates “the athletes for their excellent performances and the 11 medals they won at the Commonwealth games”. As for Elias Georgiou and Giorgos Balarjisvili, who won gold medals in Gymnastics Horizontal Bar and Men’s-66 kg Judo category respectively, he says that “they elevated our country at the highest podium.”

In the 22nd Commonwealth Games, the national team of Cyprus came 16th among 72 countries, winning 11 medals, 2 gold, 3 silver and 6 bronze.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Almost 1.2 million passengers travelled to and from Larnaka and Pafos airports in July, which translates to 82% of the traffic for the corresponding month in 2019.

A representative of Hermes Airports told CNA that “August is considered peak season and there is increased traffic at Cypriot airports these days.”

He added that “overall, passenger traffic this summer has increased compared to the two previous years. July closed with almost 1.2 million passengers at both airports (Larnaka: 800,000, Pafos 400,000), which corresponds to 82% of traffic of July 2019.

In fact, he said, July “is the second month in a row this year that passenger traffic has exceeded 1 million passengers in a month, something that hasn’t happened since October 2019. This is very significant, considering that this year we do not have the Russian and Ukrainian market.”

He also assessed that “September’s traffic will also move at the same pace.”

Replying to a question, the representative of Hermes Airports said that “the countries from and to which most passengers travel are the United Kingdom, Greece, Israel, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, Italy and others, from a total of 38 countries with which we have direct flights.”

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The theatre project “Enter Hamlet” has been invited to open the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival on August 23, 2022.

This modern-day revisiting of Shakespeare’s classic, Hamlet, Enter Hamlet, is written in English and is the new international project of Avra Sidiropoulou, Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at the Open University of Cyprus, director and Artistic Director of the Persona Theatre Company.

According to the OUC, the plot centers around Hamlet’s quest for peace and a sense of belonging, as he is recollecting the main events of his life, in constant dialogue with his past. The character, performed by Elena Pellone, moves from place to place –a train, a deserted city square, a ballroom, where he meets with random people, variously identifying in them family members, friends, lovers and rivals, as he moves forward towards an inevitable end.

The illusion of movement and progression is captured in a series of fleeting visual impressions, while Hamlet becomes a lens through which we experience the intensity of familial betrayal, insatiable sexual desire, self-sabotage, relentless introspection and a refusal to let go.

Building on the existentialist outlook of the original, the play contemporizes its perennially philosophical interrogations, and also features an episodic structure with a pseudoAristotelian ending, clearly suggesting that where one sees an end, one should also trace beginnings, it says.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) received a donation of €10,000 from the People’s Republic of China on 8 August 2022. This contribution brings China’s financial assistance to the CMP to a total of €20,000 since 2019.

According to the CMP, in 2022, these funds will support the Project on the Exhumation, Identification and Return of Remains of Missing Persons in Cyprus with its goal to end the uncertainty which has affected the families for so many years.

CMP relies on donor support to implement its bi-communal project that alleviates the suffering of the concerned families.

The European Union is the main financial contributor of CMP.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded and occupied 37% of its territory. Since then, the fate of hundreds of people remains unknown.

A Committee on Missing Persons has been established, upon agreement between the leaders of the two communities, with the scope of exhuming, identifying and returning to their relatives the remains of 492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,510 Greek Cypriots, who went missing during the inter-communal fighting of 1963-1964 and in 1974.

According to statistical data published on the CMP website by August 1, 2022 out of 2002 missing persons 1,185 were exhumed and 1,027 were identified. Out of 1510 Greek Cypriot missing persons 735 were identified and 775 are still missing. Out of 492 Turkish Cypriot missing persons 292 were identified and 200 are still missing.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The European Commission and Moderna have reached an agreement to better address Member States needs for COVID-19 vaccines for the late summer and winter period. This will ensure national authorities have access to the vaccines, including variant-adapted vaccines if authorised, at the time they need them for their own vaccination campaigns and to support their global partners.

This agreement will adapt the originally agreed contractual delivery schedules. Doses originally scheduled for delivery in the summer will now be delivered in September and during the autumn and winter period 2022, when Member States will more likely need additional stocks of vaccines for national campaigns and meeting their international solidarity commitments.

The agreement also ensures that, if one or more adapted vaccines receive marketing authorisation, Member States may choose to receive those adapted vaccines under the current contract.

In this context, at the request of some Member States, the agreement also secures additional 15 million doses of Omicron-containing vaccine booster candidates from Moderna, subject to marketing authorisation within timelines that would allow the use of these doses for their vaccination campaigns.

Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides, said: “Increasing COVID-19 vaccination and booster rates will be crucial as we plan ahead for the autumn and winter months. To best ensure our common preparedness, Member States must have the necessary tools. This includes vaccines adapted to variants, as and when they are authorised by the European Medicines Agency. This agreement will ensure that Member States will have access to the vaccine doses they need at the right time to protect our citizens”.

Background

In 2020, the European Union invested heavily in the global production of a number of COVID-19 vaccines. It was crucial to have vaccines as early as possible and at the scale needed, requiring important investments before knowing whether any of these vaccines would prove successful.

These actions taken at risk in 2020 have clearly paid off, as the development of vaccines has been highly successful: Member States had equal access to safe and effective vaccines at the earliest opportunity, and at the scale needed, allowing all EU citizens to be offered primary and booster vaccinations, saving lives and mitigating the impact of the pandemic upon social and economic life.

Moreover, a large number of these vaccines could also be used in the global efforts to tackle the pandemic. As of end July 2022, the EU exported more than 2.4 billion vaccine doses to 168 countries. Member States have shared over 478 million doses of which around 406 million have already been delivered to recipient countries (around 82% of these via COVAX). At the same time, Member States must continue to ensure they have the strategic stocks of vaccines they need to deal with the potential epidemiological evolution of the COVID-19 virus, given the uncertainties over its future evolution and impact. The EU’s Vaccines Strategy provides Member States with certainty that they will have the supply they need, including of adapted vaccines.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

On its website, NASA shows a satellite image with Cyprus in the center saying “a dust plume stretches over the eastern Mediterranean, shrouding parts of Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus. NASA’s EMIT mission will help scientists better understand how airborne dust affects climate”. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/1-emit-1041.jpg

It says that each year, strong winds carry more than a billion metric tons – or the weight of 10,000 aircraft carriers – of mineral dust from Earth’s deserts and other dry regions through the atmosphere. While scientists know that the dust affects the environment and climate, they don’t have enough data to determine, in detail, what those effects are or may be in the future – at least not yet.

The mission will identify the composition of mineral dust from Earth’s arid regions, it will help scientists understand how dust affects different Earth processes, its data will improve the accuracy of climate models and it will help scientists predict how future climate scenarios will affect the type and amount of dust in our atmosphere.

Moreover, it will clarify whether mineral dust heats or cools the planet. NASA says that right now, scientists don’t know whether mineral dust has a cumulative heating or cooling effect on the planet. That’s because dust particles in the atmosphere have different properties. For instance, some particles may be dark red, while others may be white.

“The color matters because it determines whether the dust will absorb the Sun’s energy, as dark-colored minerals do, or reflect it, as light-colored minerals do. If more of the dust absorbs the Sun’s energy than reflects it, it’ll warm the planet, and vice versa” it says.

EMIT will provide a detailed picture of how much dust comes from dark versus light minerals. That information will allow scientists to determine whether dust heats or cools the planet overall, as well as regionally and locally, NASA says.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The European Commission has launched today a call for evidence inviting feedback on the performance of the EU legal framework which exempts liner shipping consortia from EU antitrust rules (Consortia Block Exemption Regulation or ‘CBER’).

Today, the Commission has also sent targeted questionnaires to interested parties in the maritime liner shipping supply chain (i.e. carriers, shippers and freight forwarders, port and terminal operators) on the impact of consortia between liner shipping companies, as well as of the CBER on their operations since 2020.

Interested parties can provide comments for eight weeks, until 3 October 2022.

The evaluation

EU antitrust rules generally ban agreements between companies that restrict competition. However, the CBER allows, under certain conditions, shipping lines with a combined market share of below 30% to enter into cooperation agreements to provide joint cargo transport services, also known as ‘consortia’.

The CBER is due to expire on 25 April 2024. The Commission therefore needs to carry out an evaluation of the CBER on how it has functioned since 2020.

Today’s call for evidence and targeted questionnaires are part of the evaluation of the CBER. The feedback collected by the Commission will complement the evidence it has collected as part of its sectoral monitoring activities. Over the last two years, the Commission has had regular exchanges with market participants, such as shippers, freight forwarders and carriers, as well as with competition and regulatory authorities in Europe, the US and other jurisdictions, on the challenges faced by the shipping sector. In December 2021, as part of its sectoral monitoring activities, the Commission also started a fact-finding exercise by sending questionnaires to carriers active on trades to and from the EU, to collect market information, in particular on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on their operations and on the maritime supply chain.

Next steps

Interested parties can submit their comments to the call for evidence and targeted questionnaires until 3 October 2022.

The evaluation will help the Commission decide whether the CBER should expire or be extended again, with or without amendments. The Commission will summarise the results of the evaluation in a Staff Working Document that is planned to be published in the last quarter of 2022.

All details about the evaluation are available here.

Background

Liner shipping services comprise the provision of regular, scheduled non-bulk maritime cargo transport (the vast majority in containers) on a specific route. They play an essential role in EU trade and for the EU economy as a whole. They require significant levels of investment and therefore are regularly provided by several shipping companies cooperating in consortia.

Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’) prohibits agreements between companies that restrict competition. However, under Article 101(3) TFEU, such agreements can be declared compatible with the Single Market provided they contribute to improving the production or distribution of goods or to promoting technical or economic progress, while allowing consumers a fair share of the resulting benefits without eliminating competition.

Council Regulation 246/2009 provides that, in accordance with the provisions of Article 101(3) TFEU, the Commission may exempt consortia from the application of Article 101(1) TFEU for a period limited to five years, with the possibility of extension. Accordingly, the Commission adopted in 2009 the CBER (Commission Regulation (EC) No 906/2009), which sets the specific conditions for such an exemption. These conditions notably aim at ensuring that customers enjoy a fair share of the resulting benefits.

The Commission prolonged the validity of the CBER in 2014 and 2020. The prolongation in 2020 was decided because the evaluation had shown that despite evolutions in the market (increased consolidation, concentration, technological change, increasing size of vessels) the CBER was still fit for purpose, in line with the Commission’s “Better Regulation” approach to policy-making, and delivered on its objectives. Moreover, the consortia agreements that met the conditions set out in the CBER continued to satisfy the conditions laid down in Article 101(3) TFEU. More specifically, the Commission had found that the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation resulted in efficiencies for carriers that could better use vessels’ capacity and offer more connections. The exemption only applied to consortia with a market share not exceeding 30% and whose members were free to price independently. In that context, those efficiencies resulted in lower prices and better quality of service for consumers. Specifically, the evaluation had shown that in recent years both costs for carriers and prices for customers per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) had decreased by approximately 30% and quality of service had remained stable. The extension was limited to four years, compared to the traditional five-year duration of the CBER, to be able to react more promptly in the event of any possible changes in market circumstances.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Trade deficit was up by €1.12 billion in the first half of 2022, data released by the Cyprus Statistical Service (CyStat), on Tuesday show.

In particular according to the official data, imports of goods (from EU Member States and from third countries) in January – June 2022 amounted to €5,664.3 mn compared to €4,059.9 mn in January – June 2021, recording an increase of 39.5%.

Total exports of goods (to EU Member States and to third countries) in January – June 2022 were €1,803.8 mn compared to €1,325 mn in January – June 2021, registering an increase of 36.1%.

The trade deficit was €3,860,6 mn in the period January – June 2022 compared to €2,734.9 mn in the corresponding period of 2021, CyStat said.

In addition, provisional data for June 2022, show that total imports of goods were €1,195.5 mn compared to €765.7 mn in June 2021, recording an increase of 56.1%. Imports from other EU Member States in June 2022 were €570.9 mn and from third countries €624.6 mn, compared to €486.2 mn and €279.5 mn respectively in June 2021.

Imports in June 2022 include the transfer of economic ownership of mobile transport equipment (vessels and aircrafts), with total value of €364.9 mn as compared to €113.4 mn in June 2021.

Total exports of goods in June 2022 were €292.1 mn compared to €296.6 mn in June 2021, recording a decrease of 1.5%.

Exports to other EU Member States in June 2022 were €105.7 mn and to third countries €186.4 mn, compared to €84.2 mn and €212.4 mn respectively in June 2021.

Exports in June 2022 include the transfer of economic ownership of mobile transport equipment (vessels), with total value of €39,3 mn as compared to €80,5 mn in June 2021.

Final data for May this year show a significant increase in imports from both EU and third countries as well as in exports of domestically produced and foreign products.

In particular, the total imports of goods (from EU Member States and from third countries) amounted to €1,152.8 mn in May 2022 compared to €668.1 mn in May 2021, recording an increase of 72.5%.

Exports of domestically produced products, including stores and provisions, in May 2022 were €209.3 mn as compared to €125.6 mn in May 2021, recording an increase of 66.6%.

Domestic exports of industrial products in May 2022 were €195.5 mn compared to €111,7 mn in May 2021, whilst domestic exports of agricultural products in May 2022 were €12.9 mn compared to €12.3 mn in May 2021.

Also, exports of foreign products, including stores and provisions, in May 2022 were €210 mn compared to €101.7 mn in May 2021, recording an increase of 106.5%.

Source: Cyprus News Agency