Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola told MEPs in Strasbourg on Tuesday that the European Union faces a period of geopolitical pressure, with security, competitiveness, migration and enlargement among the priorities set out for Cyprus’s turn holding the rotating EU Council presidency.
Metsola said “the next six months will not be easy” and that Europe would focus on competitiveness, easing pressures on families and businesses, and investment in security and defence, the parliamentary press service reported on Tuesday.
She also reiterated the Parliament’s support for a “single sovereign European state” in Cyprus based on a bicommunal, bizonal federation in line with UN resolutions and EU law.
Christodoulides said Cyprus was taking on the presidency at a “defining moment” marked by geopolitical instability, geoeconomic competition, war in Europe, and pressures linked to digital and environmental transitions, as well as migration.
He stated the international order “can no longer be taken for granted” and called for unity, deeper integration and “decisive action."
Security, enlargement and domestic priorities
On security and defence, Christodoulides said Russia’s war against Ukraine had exposed an “urgent need” to strengthen Europe’s security architecture and defence readiness, while reaffirming EU support for Ukraine.
He added that borders “cannot be changed by force”, referring to Ukraine, Greenland “or anywhere else.”
On competitiveness, he set out a “pragmatic agenda” centred on investment, innovation, simplification and support for small and medium-sized enterprises — SMEs — while calling for completion of the EU single market and deeper capital markets.
He described enlargement as the EU’s “most powerful geopolitical tool” and called for progress with Ukraine, Moldova, the Western Balkans and Turkey, while also referencing relations with the Southern Neighbourhood and the Gulf, trade policy, and partnerships with the United States and the United Kingdom.
On social issues, he listed affordable housing, tackling child poverty, protecting young people, strengthening the EU’s “Health Union” and access to essential medicines among the priorities.
MEPs’ responses included calls for stronger EU security and unity, with several describing enlargement as a geopolitical tool, while some raised Cyprus’s status as the only EU member state under military occupation and urged renewed efforts towards reunification.
