With the impeachment of the President of the Republic, not only do we not simply want to jeopardize this achievement of the reform of the Local Self-Government (LA), but on the contrary we want to strengthen it, said today the Minister of Interior Mr. Nikos Nouris.
The Minister of Interior, at the end of the session of the Interior Committee of the Parliament, made statements to journalists on the issue of the referral of part of the laws on the reform of the Civil Service by the President of the Republic of Cyprus.
The Minister of Interior, at the end of the session of the Interior Committee of the Parliament, made statements to journalists on the issue of the referral of part of the laws on the reform of the Civil Service by the President of the Republic of Cyprus.
The Minister said that during the Session of the Interior Committee of the House of Representatives, there was a discussion on the impeachment of the President of the Republic.
The Government made it clear for the umpteenth time that the TA reform is a huge achievement for which the executive and the legislature worked together, the Minister said.
"With the PM's impeachment, not only do we simply not want to jeopardise this achievement, but on the contrary, we want to strengthen it," he added.
He explained that the PDP made this particular referral because "the particular entity called 'Akamas' should have been treated differently, it should have remained as a separate entity of a cluster of communities and not be trichotomized in the way that this particular proposal passed by the House of Representatives envisages."
"In addition to this, we have submitted our concern that through this particular enactment, explaining the reasons for the referral, the Municipality of Peyia is effectively depopulated, since from the almost 17000 population assigned to it by the government proposal, it is reduced to around 7000, which is expected to create sustainability problems," the Minister said. "It is an indicator that is extremely important in terms of sustainability issues," explained Mr. Nouris.
Additionally for the Municipality of Pegeia, he argued that "the reinforcement with commercial premises that we had given it through the merger with the communities of Chloraka and Ebas, with 1630 commercial premises, which numerically are drastically reduced with this diversification, will create substantial problems for it."
In addition, he argued that "the reinforcement with commercial premises that we had given it through the merger with the communities of Chloraka and Ebas, with 1630 commercial premises, which numerically are drastically reduced with this diversification, will create substantial problems for it.
"Therefore, our argumentation as a Government is directed at the fact that the specific area called the 'Akamas' area, which until today for many, many years has been operating under a specific plan, is defined by the eight communities, by the administrative boundaries of the eight specific communities of the Akamas area," he added.
He referred to certain common characteristics of these communities saying that these are socio-economic, the topography of the area, their rural development, their agricultural crops, their agro-pastoralism, and more.
"The area of Laona has been the subject of discussion for many years by the departments involved and we have finally reached the final stage of the constitution of the evolution of the Plan that existed before, into the Akama Local Plan, so that we can enable, on the one hand, the promotion of the forest park of the area and, on the other hand, the enhancement of the sustainability of these communities," he said.
He explained that this particular differentiation, which was made on the part of the Parliament, completely reverses the government's planning.
He noted that the legal issues have been explained on the part of the Legal Service to the Interior Committee.
He stressed that there was the Government's disagreement regarding arrangements with other entities that have been differentiated at the stage of passing the bill, nevertheless he noted that "judging precisely that we do not want to torpedo this grand effort of reforming the TA, we focused our interest only on this particular issue for which there are a number of peculiarities that do not exist in any other entity in the Republic of Cyprus".
"With the trisection of the area of Laonas that has been brought about by this particular enactment, instead of being governed by a single Local Plan, this area will essentially be governed by four urban plans: the Paphos Plan, the Pafos Plan, the Pegeia Plan, the Akamas Plan and the Countryside Plan. This will create huge difficulties in terms of development policy, implementation of infrastructure projects in this area, he added.
He informed that they had also reached a settlement regarding the many private enclosed properties in Akamas which was a huge problem they were asked to manage. With this settlement "we will have a very big setback since again we will not be able to provide a solution to these people's properties," he said.
At the same time, the series of experts who have been invited and have contributed to the diversification and preparation of the Akamas Plan which they have described as a sustainable plan, obviously have a different opinion since as prepared it is fully in line with the European Directive 9243 that governs the operation of the forest park, the Minister said.
"With the way this legislation has been passed, the House of Representatives, in our assessment, negates all these convocations and additionally creates pressure to intensify development in these sensitive areas since it incorporates communities of Akamas with the specific characteristics I have mentioned within a municipality eminently developmental, the Municipality of Peyia," he said.
In addition, he noted that "it clearly exacerbates the problem of urbanization, something that the Government wants to address with the specific plans it is promoting in our mountainous and disadvantaged areas, since the way in which the communities were zoned within the Municipality of Pegeia, incentives will essentially be given to the residents of that entity to move to the urban center, which is Pegeia, instead of remaining in the communities."
"So for a number of many arguments, we believe that the impeachment of the Prime Minister is not only valid, but is a measure to strengthen the reform of local government, and of course this effort is far from what has been said about political expediency," the Minister stressed.
He argued that "political expediency can be attributed to those who argue the opposite said.
"Political expediency is trying to promote the creation of a new entity of a new entity, in this case the Municipality of Pegeia, when you know that its viability is at stake with this particular proposal, when you are unjustifiably, without any documentation, trichotomizing this particular area with these particular characteristics, and when you are giving development rights to an area that we all call 'area of natural beauty'," he added.
"I want to believe that the House of Representatives and the parliamentary parties, acting in the way that all these months together we have reached many consensus to create exactly this achievement, because it is an achievement, called TA reform, will work and next Thursday in the plenary session of the Parliament and will enable the Government to proceed with the publication of the Akamas Local Plan, giving the national park of Cyprus all these characteristics that we have been trying to give for years, and we have not yet succeeded," the Minister said.
Asked to comment on a statement that 30% of the Pegeia area is within 'Akamas' and whether the Akamas Local Plan includes a part of the Municipality of Pegeia, the Minister replied that "it is much easier to manage a piece of land which is owned and governed by a specific local plan and to put a specific prohibition on certain developments, but it is very different when you consciously choose to create an area which you have prepared in advance and have studied and submitted very specific recommendations from technocrats from Cyprus and abroad, and you consciously want four different laws to be applied in the same area".
It is one thing to manage an existing issue, he said, and another to try to create a new entity with this huge fragmentation that will create difficulties.
Asked by a reporter whether the referral of the law would set a precedent for other areas, risking blowing up the entire TA reform, the minister said that in principle no one can rule out the democratic right of anyone at any stage and time to make amendments to existing laws.
What was also explained by the State Legal Service is that the consent of the executive is required for a number of issues. Giving the example of the separation of the Paphos Municipality from the Municipality of Geroskipou, he said that while the government disagreed, they had not challenged the issue in question.
"We are proving that we are advocates for the best possible implementation of local government. We did not want to create problems that could potentially lead us down dangerous paths," he said, adding that "where and where we considered that other efforts could be made to resolve the specific problems, we chose not to have a referral."
"In this case, we believe that the problem is holistic and that is why the PM chose to proceed with a referral," he stressed.
Asked about the statement that the Akamas Local Plan was not made public and that it is not considered something official, the Minister explained that it is not something non-existent, but has been shaped by a lot of discussions, consultations, visits and the involvement of many stakeholders.
"All of them have co-constructed under the umbrella of the Planning Council, this plan," he added and informed that the plan is in its final stage and only the issue of the environmental opinion remains to be published by the Minister of Interior.
Asked by a reporter whether there is any risk regarding the Recovery Fund, the Minister said that the European Commission had stated in advance that with the completion of the TA reform, it would like the Minister of Interior to explain the rationale behind any enactment.
The Minister said he would be asked to justify to the EU the changes that had been made, arguing that it was not only the clustering and mergers of municipalities that were considered changes, but also "the serious reforming changes to the provincial clustering which I think are indeed extremely important changes, and indeed extremely reforming".
"I would like to hope that I will be given the opportunity to have one less problem with the decision of the Parliament next Thursday regarding the Akama issue," the Interior Minister concluded.
(EFYs)
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