The Cyprus Government aims to ban the sale of any GPS receivers that use maps featuring Turkish place-names for the currently Turkish occupied and military controlled areas of the Republic.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based navigation system made up of a network of 24 satellites placed into orbit by the US Defence Department. GPS was originally intended for military applications, but in the 1980s the government made the system available for civilian use. GPS works in any weather conditions, anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day.

However, the bid to ban the GPS receivers is turning out to be a legal minefield. It goes without saying that preventing the sale of consumer goods would violate a raft of EU free market laws, as well as regulations governing the free flow of goods and services. The receivers in question are manufactured by Garmin, a US electronics company, and are imported from Britain.

The devices come loaded with a basemap which employs Turkish names for towns, villages and streets in the Turkish occupied and military controlled north area of the Republic of Cyprus. For example, Kyrenia appears as “Girne” and Morphou as “Güzelyurt”.

But computer software can be used to make a simple modification to the names. When the matter first surfaced, the Government complained to both the manufacturer and to the Cypriot importer. The latter was contacted and asked to stop importing the devices, but the company replied it could not as no formal complaint had been filed.

Thus the Government asked the Attorney-General’s office for a legal reasoning. In his response, the Attorney-General explained that, specific legislation needs to be passed before a product may be banned. And in a subsequent legal reasoning, the Attorney-General cited a further legal obstacle: it is illegal to stop or in any way restrict the availability of a consumer product if it has been imported from an EU country. Such restrictions do not apply to products coming from outside the EU. However, legal experts think they have found a loophole: authorities may prohibit the importation of a product if it is deemed to be contrary to “public order”.

The Ministry of Education and Culture meanwhile has come up with some additional reasoning for the campaign to ban the GPS receivers. In its feedback, the Ministry pointed out that the Greek place names of Cyprus have been shaped throughout the centuries. It is a fact that the Turkish “so-called authorities” have indeed undertaken a systematic campaign to alter the nomenclature of occupied northern Cyprus. Further, the Ministry pointed out that, according to both the UN and UNESCO, placenames are part of a nation’s cultural heritage.

It seems the Government is aiming seriously about the crackdown, and as we speak experts are drafting a law banning the offending receiver. In its crosshairs is one particular importer, the one spotted a couple of years back.

In a further development, the owner of the company claims that he has since updated his receivers, the Turkish placenames have been purged and replaced by the official Greek ones, he says. He did this by obtaining the proper designations from the records of the Land Registry Department, which keeps maps of the entire island. ”Ninety-nine per cent of the receivers of this brand now have Greek names” he claims. “By default, the receivers have been converted to Greek, unless a customer specifically asks that the placenames be left in Turkish” he said.