The European Commissioners, who paid a two-day visit to the island within the framework of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the EU visited the old Nicosia town on the morning of Friday, 16 January and walked along the Green Line.
In statements to the media, Commissioners Costas Kadis and Apostolos Tzitzikostas stressed the importance of this walk along Nicosia’s Green Line as regards understanding the scale of the Cyprus issue and what it means for a European country to have a divided capital.
The Commissioners, accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Constantinos Kombos, the Deputy Minister for European Affairs Marilena Raouna, and other members of the Council of Ministers, walked along Lidinis Street, on the Green Line, where the photography exhibition “The Cyprus Question”, is located. The Nicosia Green Line is the UN-controlled buffer zone that separates the areas controlled by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus from the Turkish-occupied areas of the island.
The tour started from the historic Pancyprian Gymnasium and ended at Dionysiou Street, outside the Centre for Information and Training for Employment and Entrepreneurship, where the Pancyprian Gymnasium choir sang songs in the Cypriot dialect.
There, the Commissioners were offered Cyprus coffee, zivania and traditional delicacies such as halloumi and anari cheeses, smoked pork, Paphos delights, and dried figs.
Asked by journalists about his colleagues’ impressions during the tour, Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadis, noted that the walk across the Green Line was “very strongly etched in the memory and mind” of his colleagues as they saw “what is happening in Cyprus, what it means to live in a divided homeland, what it means for a European country to have a divided capital”.
Through the photography exhibition, according to Kadis, the Commissioners “experienced the drama of Greek Cypriots and Cyprus in general” and got a “clearer picture of what occupation and a divided homeland mean.”
He congratulated the government “for the impeccable,” organisation of the College of Commissioners’ visit to Cyprus.
Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, asked about the tour, congratulated the Cyprus Presidency for choosing, during the visit of the College of Commissioners, to bring the President and all the Commissioners to visit the Green Line, “for two reasons: firstly, to send a loud and strong message that each of us will fight until we achieve a just and viable solution for Cyprus”. Secondly, he said, “so that everyone understands clearly that at this moment, in 2026, there is still an EU Member State that is under occupation”.
“This is unacceptable and we must all fight with all our strength to achieve a just and viable solution”, he added.
Tzitzikostas also noted that this semester is “very important” for Cyprus. “I am certain that the Cyprus Presidency will be crowned with success and it is also an opportunity during these six months to highlight this very important message and problem for the whole of Europe”, he said, noting that Cyprus, for the next six months, will be at the forefront of Europe.
Asked if he believes that what the Commissioners have seen during the tour would help the EU exert more pressure for a Cyprus problem settlement, Tzitzikostas said that “I am certain because, believe me, when talking to them, no one had understood the magnitude of the problem”.
“It is completely different to see it on the news, to read it in newspapers or in history books and completely different to visit a place where a city is essentially divided, a country is divided, an island is divided,” he said. This, in itself, constitutes a great success of the Cyprus Presidency, he added.
President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had visited the Green Line on Thursday, accompanied by President of the Republic, Nikos Christodoulides. According to CNA information, von der Leyen told President Christodoulides that the visit and tour along the Green Line was “eye opening.”
The Commissioners were to depart from Cyprus on Friday.
(Source: CNA)
