Nicosia (EFE) .- The head of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, arrived in Cyprus on Tuesday in what is the eighth stop on his tour of several European countries before assuming the semi-annual presidency of the European Union on July 1 (EU).
Its objective is to listen to the positions of other community leaders before the negotiations that will be underway during that presidency to try to reach consensus.
This is the first visit by a President of the Spanish Government to Cyprus since José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero traveled in 2009.
The country’s president, Nicos Jristodulidis, has been in office for just over a month and has decided to make this trip by Sánchez an official visit, who is the first European leader to travel to Cyprus in this new stage.
Migration, central point of the agenda
Among the issues on the European agenda that will be present in the conversation with the Cypriot president, migration occupies a prominent place.
The Twenty-seven have promised to approve a Pact on Migration and Asylum before next year’s European elections, but there are very different positions that make it difficult to achieve that objective.
Migration is of special relevance for Mediterranean countries such as Spain and Cyprus and the other two that Sánchez has included in this new stage of his European tour: Malta (which he will also visit this Tuesday) and Italy (where he will stop on Wednesday).
Sánchez intends to listen to the positions of each leader on this matter and will defend an inclusive pact, which is committed to the external dimension of migration and in which aid is advocated for the countries of origin and transit of migratory movements.
He also defends that the opinion of the countries of first entry for migration, such as Spain and the three partners he will visit on this trip, be taken into account.
the green line
Cyprus has a special problem in this context due to the arrival of irregular immigrants from the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus through what is known as the Green Line, which has divided the island since the Turkish invasion in 1974.
Last year the EU and the Cypriot government signed a memorandum of understanding that tries to alleviate the problems derived from the migratory pressures that this divided island has faced in recent years.
The strengthening of the strategic autonomy and competitiveness of the EU, the energy reform, the war in Ukraine or relations with other regions of the world will also be issues that Sánchez addresses with Jristodulidis.
There will also be an opportunity for both of them to analyze bilateral relations, which in the commercial field place Spain as the ninth supplier of Cyprus.
Until now, Sánchez had visited seven countries on his European tour (Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Ireland, Denmark, Finland and Belgium), so that at the end of this round he will reach ten by adding Cyprus, Malta and Italy to them. .
