The Eurobarometer 2026 study on youth and democracy showed that young residents of Cyprus aged 15 to 30 occupy the last place among all European Union countries in terms of social activism and civic engagement.
According to the survey, only 26 percent of young Cypriots reported that in the past year they had taken any actions to change society — whether signing a petition, participating in a rally or sending a letter to a politician.
For comparison: the EU average is 55 percent, and in Luxembourg it reaches 72 percent. However, as experts note, the wording of the question in the survey may not be entirely fair to Cypriot youth, since signing petitions and writing letters to politicians are not common forms of activism on the island.
According to Yiorgos Charalambous, associate professor of politics and governance at the University of Nicosia, young people may help vulnerable members of the community, informally volunteer at community kitchens, support those who have faced discrimination, or raise awareness through social networks — and at the same time not necessarily consider such actions political activism.
23-year-old Andreas Panoullas, a member of the youth wing of the centrist DIKO party, confirms: many young people send letters or personally come to ministers and deputies to express their ideas and discuss ways to solve existing problems. However, Panoullas himself speaks about this as a representative of an organization that is part of the systemic structure — and this is an important feature of the Cypriot context.
Andreas Riris, a participant in the progressive left activist group Afoa, acknowledges that a protest culture is indeed absent in Cyprus and links this to a whole complex of reasons. It is telling that even in such a radical group as Afoa only about 30 percent of members belong to Generation Z — the core of active participants consists of people from their late twenties to early forties.
According to Riris, this is explained by the peculiarities of Cypriot society, where young people from childhood move along a clearly defined trajectory: school, then for young men — the army, for young women — university, after which everyone returns and immediately finds a job. Such predetermination leaves little space for activism and volunteering.
Victoras Kountouris from the Youth Council of Cyprus (Onek) notes that activism on the island is peculiarly integrated into the system itself — through youth wings of parties or such initiatives as municipal youth councils and advisory bodies that submit proposals on issues affecting youth at the local level.
The semi-governmental organization Onek performs the role of an intermediary, and the online platform Ekfracy launched by the government collects the opinions of young people on topics of employment, transport, housing and other important issues. Several thousand young people are registered on the platform, and the results of the latest survey on youth entrepreneurship were transferred to the Ministry of Commerce. Kountouris considers this a positive feature of the country: people strive for change, but not through demonstrations, but through concrete actions.
Professor Charalambous emphasizes an important distinction between apathy and disappointment.
Partly the low involvement is explained by economic reasons: the situation in Cyprus is not as severe as in other countries, so people do not have an acute desire to protest. However, no less significant is disappointment — widespread distrust of politicians, caused primarily by the lack of accountability, which generates cynicism and the conviction that nothing can be changed. Young people may sincerely worry about corruption, inequality, environmental degradation and the future of the Cyprus problem, but this concern does not turn into a belief that signing a petition or appealing to a politician will yield results.
Cultural and historical factors also play their role. Cyprus became an independent state relatively recently, and centuries under foreign rule inevitably formed an unconscious reverence for the status quo and reliance on established personal connections rather than confrontation with institutions. The religiosity of Greek Cypriots, according to Riris, also contributes to fatalism and shifting responsibility to higher powers. At the same time, on the occupied north a protest culture exists — partly because Turkish Cypriots are more secular, but mainly due to a much more severe financial situation.
Separately stands the Cyprus problem, which permeates all spheres of society. The endless political theater around reunification strengthens general cynicism, and the obsession with Turkey often covers up one’s own politicians — as in the case of the scandal around the “golden passports,” when the discourse suddenly shifted toward Qatar, the owner of Al-Jazeera, supposedly a “friend of Turkey.”
School education, according to Riris, also does not contribute to a protest culture: the lack of critical thinking, a religious and Hellenocentric view of things lead to the fact that young people take to the streets only on the Cyprus issue and usually from nationalist positions, ignoring injustice from internal players — the government, ministries, banks and big business. After all, the rise in fuel prices is not Turkey’s fault.
The situation is complex and multifaceted. Activism for social change may be perceived as a losing cause, yet the attractiveness of nationalism among young Greek Cypriots is real, as evidenced by the growth in popularity of the ELAM party. The system seems dysfunctional, but open confrontation has not yet occurred, and a significant part of potential activism is successfully absorbed and co-opted by systemic structures like Onek. As Riris aptly notes, the only way to guarantee that no changes will occur is to do nothing.
Source: cyprus-mail.com
https://cyprusbutterfly.com.cy/news/apatiya-razocharovanie-chto-meshaet-molodyim
