President Nikos Christodoulides met European Council President Antonio Costa at the presidential palace on Friday, with the EU\u2019s next long-term budget, the Cyprus problem and regional developments among the issues on the agenda.<\/p>\n
Welcoming Costa, who is on a working visit to Cyprus, Christodoulides thanked him for his support during Cyprus\u2019 EU Council presidency and praised his initiative to visit all member states ahead of upcoming European Council discussions.<\/p>\n
He said the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028-2034 was the most important issue facing the bloc, stressing the need to reach a political agreement by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to do our utmost to reach a political agreement by the end of 2026. We don\u2019t have an alternative,\u201d Christodoulides said.<\/p>\n
He added that discussions would also cover Ukraine, the Middle East, EU enlargement, competitiveness, defence and security.<\/p>\n
Christodoulides also thanked Costa for his \u201cpersonal interest\u201d in the Cyprus problem, saying they would discuss UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres\u2019 efforts to resume negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Cyprus problem is a European problem and the European Union can play a decisive role in order to reunite our country,\u201d he said, adding that any settlement should be based on UN Security Council resolutions and EU law, values and principles.<\/p>\n
EU Presidency congratulations<\/p>\n
Costa, meanwhile, congratulated Christodoulides on Cyprus\u2019 EU Council presidency during the first half of the year, saying the bloc now faced challenging decisions in the coming months, particularly over the 2028-2034 budget.<\/p>\n
He said his visits to EU capitals were aimed at ensuring European institutions remained close to citizens and member states.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to work hand-in-hand because only together we can deliver, and our strength is based on our unity,\u201d Costa said.<\/p>\n
Turning to the Cyprus problem, he said that \u201cin a united Europe, the unification of Cyprus is a key issue\u201d.<\/p>\n
Costa added that any solution must adhere to international law and expressed hope that a good solution to the Cyprus problem could be found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Nikos Christodoulides met European Council President Antonio Costa at the presidential palace on Friday, with the EU\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[77,5651,257,33,6753],"class_list":["post-130397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-european-council","tag-antonio-costa","tag-cyprus-news","tag-european-council","tag-european-union-eu","tag-nikos-christodoulides"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}