The Cyprus Problem after the 1999 Helsinki European Council

This essay attempts to assess the consequences of the so-called Helsinki Strategy since its creation at the Helsinki European Council of December 1999. It analyzes the strategy’s interrelations with other processes involved in developments related to the Cyprus problem. Despite the fears and criticisms expressed at the time and the complex of events and processes that followed, the decisions affecting Cyprus, Turkey, and Greece at the Helsinki Council reflected a degree of “Europeanization” of a conflict situation. It is also argued that the contents of the Annan Plan for Cyprus’s reunification and the outcomes of the referenda on that plan in 2004 are not the results of the Helsinki Strategy but have a different origin.