This article is part of the Cypriot presidency of the EU special report.

NICOSIA — Located at the edge of Europe, Cyprus has spearheaded a hard-line returns policy for migrants entering the island illegally. As the European Union negotiates the final details of its own returns law, Cypriot officials are preparing to take a victory lap by the summer. 

Diplomats taking charge of European Union affairs under the upcoming Cypriot presidency of the Council of the European Union will lead the negotiations on an EU-wide plan to return more irregular migrants to hubs outside Europe.

“Cyprus has implemented a successful program for returns, most of which are voluntary, and we would like to see a solid legal basis that will help other states to implement them,” the country’s deputy minister of migration, Nicholas Ioannides, told POLITICO. 

With a population of 1.2 million people, and located close to Syria, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries, for many years, Cyprus had the highest asylum applications per capita in the EU.

To cope with those numbers, Nicosia in 2024 set up a migration policy with a central pillar: its returns policy. It has achieved the highest per capita number of returning migrants in Europe, EU data shows. Departures are now five times higher than arrivals, Ioannides said. 

The Danish presidency of the Council concluded negotiations on a common position on the draft returns regulation within the Council. The new measures would allow EU countries to remove failed asylum seekers, set up centers to process asylum requests overseas and create removal hubs outside their borders.

Cyprus will now lead the three-way negotiations between countries, the European Parliament and the Commission, expected to begin around March next year, when the European Parliament will agree on its own negotiating position. Nicosia is eager to wrap up the talks during its presidency before June.

The EU, earlier this month, also agreed to cut trade preferences for countries that do not cooperate with the EU on taking in returning migrants. 

Hard line on returns

The EU’s new plan for returns is ushering in a harder line on migration across Europe — where far-right parties have gained power, often by capitalizing on centrist governments’ struggles to run successful integration policies.

Voters have “made clear to governments all over the European Union, that they couldn’t accept that they weren’t able to control the access to their countries,” Rasmus Stoklund, Denmark’s center-left minister for integration, who has driven migration negotiations during his country’s Council presidency since June, told POLITICO last week. 

The returns policy, proposed in March, is a key part of the Migration and Asylum Pact adopted last year, which will start applying in mid-2026.

For Cyprus, it’s a recognition of its own policies to bet on returns as a way to curb migration.

A record-breaking influx of asylum seekers in 2022 turned migration into the thorniest political issue among Cypriots. In past years, demonstrations and violent attacks against migrant workers and small migrant-led enterprises took place, revealing deep anti-migrant sentiment.

In April 2024, Nicosia declared a state of emergency, suspended asylum application processing, and hasn’t officially resumed it. However, according to some reports, they have unofficially started processing applications on an individual basis, including those from Syrian nationals.

“Since the day we were elected, we have completely changed our procedures regarding immigration,” the country’s President Nikos Christodoulides told POLITICO last week. “Cyprus is no longer considered an attractive destination.”

“We need to address the root causes of migration and work with the countries of origin to create conditions that will encourage people to stay,” Christodoulides said. “Return hubs alone will not work. They must be part of a broader package.”

Last summer, Nicosia implemented a voluntary returns program for Syrian families, offering financial incentives. Eligible families could receive a one-off payment and a special work permit for the main income earner, provided that other family members returned to Syria and withdrew their asylum applications.

In 2024, more than 10,000 returns and 1,000 resettlements took place, according to Ioannides. In 2025, that number is expected to be even higher.

‘Innovative’ but criticized

Cyprus’ policies have made the island state the target of courts and human rights groups in the past. The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Cyprus for pushing Syrian migrants back to Lebanon. Lawyers have reported repeated violations of court decisions by the Cypriot government to force migrant deportations. And human rights organizations have repeatedly accused the Cypriot government of violating international law for forcibly returning asylum seekers arriving by boat. 

Domestically, “there appears to be indirect pressure on asylum seekers to leave: most expect rejection, living on state benefits is untenable, and a nine-month work ban pushes many into the informal labor market. This, in turn, fuels workplace raids targeting them, leading to deportations,” said Kyriaki Chatzipanagiotou, policy officer at MedMA, a regional asylum and migration policy organization.

Europe’s returns proposal could offer legal tools long sought after in Nicosia. 

Cyprus strongly supports the “innovative ideas” that are in the EU’s plan, Cypriot minister Ioannides said, including establishing facilities outside the continent to receive people deported from Europe, the so-called return hubs.

The country has also been at the forefront of pushing for EU aid to Lebanon to control flows, and it lobbied to declare parts of Syria safe for return.

“These ideas are beginning to take shape, moving from theory to practice … They will offer important solutions for managing migration,” Ioannides said.