A few days before the end of the year, the two organisations representing businesses, Keve and Oev, both expressed concerns about the economy’s prospects in 2024 and urged the government to go ahead with the reforms that would boost the country’s competitiveness and help it cope with the uncertainty ahead. The two wars being fought, one very close to Cyprus, and the decision of big companies to stop their ships travelling through the Suez Canal are expected to cause serious difficulties for the economy, said president of Keve Stavros Stavrou.

The looming exogenous dangers related to rising energy prices, shortages and the higher costs of raw materials, food and basic goods, made it imperative for the government to use the tools at its disposal to ensure the economy’s competitiveness, said Oev president Antonis Antoniou in his message. The heads of the two organisations issued a wish-list of reforms that would assist this effort and keep the economy on a growth path. Most have been in the pipeline for years, with very little progress being made, while the demand for the production of cheap electricity is almost certain not to materialise in 2024.

Other items on the wish-list are doable, although they would require the government resolve to make them happen. For instance, we have been hearing for years about the digitalisation of public administration, cutting of red tape and the digital transformation but all have been moving at a glacial speed. Paradoxically, the government will be hiring even more people for the public service next year, suggesting that it has not placed much faith in the digitalisation of public administration and cutting red tape; more public employees mean more bureaucracy not less.

Keve and Oev also urged the government to control the public sector payroll, which will increase by 15 per cent in 2024, without including the cost of living allowance, which the labour minister proudly announced a few days ago would ensure pay rises for 80,000 employees in the public sector. His colleague at finance said consultants would be recruited to advise how to rationalise the public payroll although this seems more a case of passing the buck rather than any genuine commitment to taking action. Rationalising the public payroll requires political resolve from the government rather than advice from foreign experts.

The other big issue on which the government would need to show political resolve in 2024 but has not prompted anywhere near as much public concern as prospects of the economy among the parties and organisations is the Cyprus issue. Although the UN Secretary-General’s envoy, Maria Holguin Cuellar, will be arriving some time in January to try to find a way of bringing the two sides to the negotiating table, the need for a breakthrough has not appeared on any of the new year wish lists. President Nikos Christodoulides made a routine reference to the problem in his Christmas message, expressing the wish that 2024 would mark “the beginning of the end of the occupation of our country.”

It was a very lukewarm position to take considering he had been imploring the UNSG to appoint an envoy for months. This also betrayed a lack of awareness of the vital importance of Cuellar’s appointment. If she fails to bring the two sides to the negotiating table it would be the final confirmation that a negotiated settlement is not possible and, most probably, signal the end of UN involvement in any settlement effort. After the collapse of Crans Montana in 2017, apart from the odd meeting of the leaders, the UNSG had washed his hands of the Cyprus problem for six years. Failure to broker negotiations in the next few months would, understandably, lead the UN to give up on the Cyprus issue and consider withdrawing from the island altogether. Why maintain its peacekeeping troops here when there will be no prospect of a peace process?

There is certainly Cyprus problem fatigue among the overwhelming majority of people, who are fed up of the big words, empty promises and false starts they have been served for decades and there seems an unspoken acceptance of partition, which most politicians also share. Having Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar banging on about separate sovereignty as a condition for talks merely reinforces the view that the status quo, which Greek Cypriots have become very comfortable with, would remain. But would it? Would Unficyp remain indefinitely controlling the buffer zone and resolving the differences that arise between the two sides, a bit too frequently for comfort in the last year?

If Cuellar leaves having achieved nothing, prompting the UNSG’s reassessment of the Cyprus peace operation, with the withdrawal of Unficyp a real possibility, Greek Cypriots will have greater things to worry about than the performance of the economy and the digital transformation. We sincerely hope it does not come to this.

Happy new year.