Cyprus’ Foreign Minister Konstantinos Kombos held an interministerial meeting on December 19, 2024, attended by officials from various ministries.

The purpose of the meeting was to present the state of affairs and assess the progress of the process of accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the Schengen area.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs presented the current state of affairs regarding the implementation of the recommendations of the European Commission. In this context, he said that in his congratulatory letter to the new Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration of the European Union, Mr. Magnus Brunner, he noted the importance that the Republic of Cyprus attaches to achieving the goal of joining the Schengen area. As well as Cyprus’ absolute commitment to fulfilling all conditions that ensure that it can adequately control the southeastern borders of the European Union.

He also announced the creation of a special Schengen working group under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to improve coordination between the relevant ministries and services.

The meeting reviewed six areas of assessment (personal data protection, police cooperation, external borders, returns, visas, and the Schengen Information System based on action plans) and highlighted the most important issues that need to be addressed immediately.

It was agreed that the goal is for the Republic of Cyprus to achieve technical readiness and, therefore, it is necessary to accelerate progress on all outstanding issues. To achieve this goal, a roadmap for eliminating the backlog was agreed upon, as well as an oversight mechanism. As for the next steps, it was agreed that all ministries and deputy ministries should step up their efforts to implement the outstanding tasks over the next few weeks, and a new meeting to assess progress will be held around the end of February.

Source: pio.gov.cy

https://cyprusbutterfly.com.cy/news/kipre-obsudili-prisoedinenie-shengenskoj-zone