Cypriot MEPs and a few parties were right to protest when Ursula von der Leyen gave her annual State of the Union speech to the European Parliament without a single word on the Cyprus problem. It grates that the President of the European Commission can’t manage even a token mention of a problem the European Union has no business ignoring.
But the omission, plainly deliberate, drives home a brutal truth that some of us in Cyprus have been pointing out for years: the Cyprus problem was never a priority for the European Union, and it still isn’t.
But are we overdoing it too, demanding that European officials show an interest in the Cyprus problem? Do we, here in Cyprus, actually care about it more than the foreigners do?
Unless the Cyprus problem is in the headlines because of some fresh development, it barely troubles the leadership, the parties or even the media, if at all. A glaring example is the Democratic Rally (DISY). While the UN Secretary-General was in Cyprus, its leadership was busy with internal polls and popularity ratings, not the “major national issue”. That comes from its own officials, Averof Neofytou among them, in public statements, not from third parties.
It’s the same story with the other parties. Skim the statements they issue every week and you’ll see their attention going to plenty of other subjects and precious little to this one. And the few statements that do appear say nothing of substance. They read as though they were put out purely for show.
Then look at the party leaders’ speeches in the state budget debate at the end of each year. Who can remember anything of substance that any of them said on the Cyprus problem last year, or the year before? Anything that became a point of reference?
Nobody remembers. They all, or nearly all, chanted the same lines over and over, like a chorus. Their agendas were packed with other, catchier subjects, the ones they wanted to hammer home to win over public opinion.
The notion that “the Cyprus problem doesn’t sell”, or, worse, “who cares about the Cyprus problem these days?”, has not taken hold only here on the island. Those of us who cover the issue as journalists aren’t the only ones who hear these lines. I’m sure the politicians hear them too. The difference is that we refuse to settle for this “reality” and keep digging and writing. Our politicians accepted it years ago, pushing the issue down their agendas because it “doesn’t sell” and so offers them nothing to gain.
The exception to the rule is Cyprus’s MEPs, who do what they can to keep the issue in the spotlight and fight for it inside the European Parliament.
A year ago, in September 2025, Loukas Fourlas, an MEP with the European People’s Party (EPP), pointed out to von der Leyen that, while she spoke of defending every square metre of European territory, she said nothing about Cyprus. The only reference to Cyprus in 2025 was to the creation of a European firefighting hub, with not a word on occupation or negotiations.
For the Commission President, this is a recurring pattern: after mentioning Turkish aggression in 2020, she has not brought it up since.
We see a similar pattern inside Cyprus. If we here think the Cyprus problem “doesn’t sell”, why would it carry any more weight for the Commission President?
