With ten days to go before his country takes office at the head of the Council of the European Union, the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, presented the political priorities of the future Presidency for the first half of 2026 in Lefkara on Sunday 21 December.
Cyprus will hold the Presidency of the Council of the EU from 1 January to 30 June 2026.
With “an autonomous Union - open to the world” as its guiding principle for these six months, the Cyprus Presidency has drawn up a programme based on the five pillars of security and defence, competitiveness, international openness, ‘values’ and social cohesion, and a European budget capable of supporting these ambitions.
Geopolitics and defence. With regard to geopolitical issues, as Nikos Christodoulides put it, the aim will be to work towards improving the EU’s strategic autonomy in a deteriorating international environment.
“Time waits for no one”, he said. He added firmly that “delay is not an option”.
Support for Ukraine will therefore remain a major priority, for which Cyprus plans to promote the rapid implementation of the ‘White Paper’ on European defence (see EUROPE 13643/6), the EU’s preparedness strategy and major defence industrial projects.
EU-NATO cooperation (see EUROPE 13765/22) and maintaining a strong transatlantic link are also among the guidelines in the programme of the future Presidency of the Council of the EU.
Security. Security, understood in a broad sense, covers, according to the future Presidency, migration management, maritime and economic security, as well as the protection of democracies from foreign interference, disinformation and hybrid threats.
In particular, the Cyprus Presidency plans to push ahead with the implementation of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ (see EUROPE 13388/11) as well as work on regulating returns (see EUROPE 13768/1).
Enlargement. Cyprus also wishes to make enlargement (see EUROPE 13776/5), involving Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans (see EUROPE 13775/11), a major vector of European geopolitics, although it specifies that this must be done “in line with [...] fair and rigorous conditionality”.
The Cyprus Presidency of the Council will also be working on the southern neighbourhood, relations with the Gulf States and the implementation of the new Pact for the Mediterranean. Free trade agreements, notably with India and the United Arab Emirates, are among the stated objectives.
Competitiveness. Competitiveness is also one of the priorities of the future Presidency, which plans to speed up work on simplifying legislation (see EUROPE 13768/5) - particularly for SMEs -, improvements to the internal market and continued construction of the capital markets union.
The EU’s energy and digital autonomy and “affordable and predictable” energy prices will also be among the issues closely monitored.
MFF 2028-2034. Finally, the President of the Republic of Cyprus emphasised the highly political nature of the next multiannual financial framework 2028-2034 (see EUROPE 13776/4).
The Cyprus Presidency will lead the first stages of discussions on the next multiannual financial framework with the aim of handing over a sufficiently advanced negotiating framework with indicative amounts to the next Presidency (Ireland) by June 2026. Mr Christodoulides stressed that a strong, ambitious and balanced budget was necessary to enable the European Union to implement its strategic priorities and its objective of autonomy.
A mediator. Over and above these sectoral priorities, Cyprus has stated that it wishes to exercise a mediating Presidency, acting as a “responsible, honest broker”, bringing together the different positions of the Member States, representing them equally and transparently, and seeking consensual solutions in the common interest of the European Union.
Link to the Cyprus programme: https://aeur.eu/f/k4d (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)