Revenue sharing as a tool of conflict management in Cyprus

Abstract

Focusing on the dynamics of the protracted Cyprus conflict, this study examines how a technical arrangement about jointly developing energy and sharing the resultant revenue can function as a conflict management tool. It argues that a functional revenue-sharing mechanism could bring energy-related tensions and differences into a manageable framework by shifting them from the political level to technical management concerns. Investigating the 2019 Turkish Cypriot proposal as a joint energy development and revenue sharing mechanism as an empirical reference point, the study stresses that such a functional administrative framework can be considered not as a normative peace remedy but as a limited and conditional conflict management tool. The findings reveal that progress in negotiations is hindered by the enduring sovereignty concerns between leaders of the two communities and their repeated failures with efforts to end the long-lasting Cyprus problem; thus, a functional mechanism can gain legitimacy only if it is designed in line with sovereignty neutrality.