‘All technical issues will have been resolved by the end of the year and Cyprus can become part of Schengen in 2026’, Christodoulides said.
There is a massive effort in place to complete all these technical aspects, he added, and join next year, as part of a strategic decision and a strategic development both for Cyprus and the EU. ‘We have the European Parliaments’ support on the matter’.
It was a pre-election promise, he noted, and it will be implemented.
Attending a Mother’s Day Event in Nicosia, he said that large families have been a priority for his government since day one and its an area ‘where we’ve done a great many things’.
He was pleased about the fact that the Large Families Organisation has recognised the impact of continued state support, noting that there is currently a long term programme in place to fight low birth rates and population decline.
The President stressed that over the past couple of years, the government has taken multi-faceted action to support large families and is now considering raising the subsidies for families with four and five children in an effort to cover for most of middle class needs. ‘It’s a holistic approach’, he said.
The President referred to the severe demographic issue facing Cyprus, as the birth rate is now 1.4% and at least 2.1% is needed to replace the population every 25 years. Two sets of measures are already in place, he added, and a third is on the way in early 2026, in an effort to overturn the situation quickly.
Commenting on a reporters’ remark that two mothers, those of Thanasis, who was killed while serving the National Guard and Kyriakos, who died as a result of a faulty Takata airbag, are fighting to raise awareness on state inadequacies, the President said that ‘the state needs to have those safeguards in place to prevent such phenomena from ever occurring’.
He said he would expect the results of the Takata investigative committee and then expand further on the issue, adding that he keeps in contact with Andriana Nikolaou, Thanasis’ mother, but will not disclose anything they issue in the public sphere. ‘I don’t want to exploit a mother’s pain’, he concluded.
On the Cyprus issue, he said he had spoken with the UNSG’s personal envoy Maria Anhela Olgin, whose mandate begins tomorrow and exchanged possible meeting dates that she will finalise and make public. But a meeting is scheduled later this month in Nicosia.
