Cyprus Seeks Schengen Entry, Rejects Hard Border Along Green Line

Cyprus is accelerating its long-delayed bid to join the European Union’s Schengen free-movement zone, Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos told the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday. Kombos described full accession as a “national goal” and said Nicosia aims to secure a positive recommendation from the European Commission after recent technical evaluations, before seeking unanimous approval from EU member states. The minister stressed that the island’s 180-kilometre Green Line — the UN-patrolled buffer separating the government-controlled south from the Turkish-occupied north — will not be treated as an external EU border. Existing checks to curb illegal migration will remain, but the government “will under no circumstances accept” the ceasefire line becoming a hard frontier, he said. Cyprus has been under Schengen evaluation since 2019 and is one of only two EU member states, along with Ireland, still outside the passport-free zone. Kombos said technical work on a new Visa Information System and other security databases is “an incredibly huge project” but has made “significant progress”. Lawmakers from major parties backed the push, although some raised concerns about migration controls and potential abuse of investor-visa schemes once Schengen entry is achieved.