Migration, Med and water will be Cyprus' 2026 EU presidency priorities

Cyprus will assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 January 2026, with a plan to prioritise migration, relations with southern neighbours, and water-resilience during its six-month term.

Cypriot deputy minister for migration and international protection, Nicholas A. Ioannides, emphasised his country would advance current EU priorities — competitiveness, defence, strategic autonomy, the upcoming EU budget (multi-annual financial framework, MFF), and enlargement talks with Ukraine, Moldova, and the Western Balkans — while carving out space for its own regional concerns.

Speaking at an event in Nicosia on Thursday (30 October) he said: “We view migration as a shared European responsibility, one that demands coherence, solidarity and collective effort”, describing the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum as an important step forward.

Cyprus wants to put focus on collaboration with third countries, especially with its neighbouring countries around the Mediterranean basin, and emphasise returns through so called “return hubs” and voluntary return programs.

While the rotating presidency doesn’t have the competences for foreign policy, Cyprus wants to give more attention to countries in northern Africa and the Middle East — such as Egypt, Israel and Palestine.

But more unusually, Cyprus also plans to take on water resilience as part of the EU's broader sustainability agenda.

Building on the EU Commission's recently-developed water resilience strategy, deputy minister Ioannides highlighted mounting threats from droughts and water-related disasters and noted that desertification, drought, and water scarcity require coordinated European responses.

Nicoletta Pirozzi, of the Trans-European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA), told EUobserver that the Cypriots programme was very ambitious.

“They [Cyprus] have calculated that during their presidency, there will be 330 legislative files to be negotiated. And 50 percent of those are new legislative proposals”, she said.

The presidency rotates among groups of three member states working as a trio. Together, they set an 18-month agenda outlining the council's priorities and key issues. Each country then develops its own detailed program for its six-month turn at the helm.

Cyprus is the last of the trio with Poland (1 January-30 June 2025) and Denmark (1 July-31 December 2025) as its predecessors.

The conference took place in Nicosia and was organised by Trans-European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA), Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs, and the department of politics and governance of the University of Nicosia on the Cypriot presidency.

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