President Nicos Christodoulides declared on Sunday that Cyprus will join the Schengen Area next year. A huge effort was being made, and the president was certain that “by the end of 2025, we will complete all the technicalities we need to ensure that our country will be in the Schengen Area in 2026.”
It is difficult to understand this super confidence of the president, considering that a political decision would need to be taken and that all 29 countries in Schengen would have to give their consent. This is not a formality by any stretch, even though the president seems to view it as such and bases his confidence on this.
Perhaps the weekend meeting with the president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, acted as a confidence boost. Regarding joining Schengen area, she told Christodoulides that the European Parliament “will always be by your side and will actively support you”, but the reality is that this is just a theoretical point of little practical value.
Currently, Cyprus and Ireland are the only EU member-states not in the Schengen Area, which also includes European Free Trade Area countries, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. It is not because they are islands cut off from the continent that they not Schengen members, because this has not stopped Malta from joining.
Ireland opted out of the Schengen Agreement in order to preserve the Common Travel Area, that provides complete freedom of movement between Ireland and the UK. This has been in place since 1922, and since Brexit has been key as it has kept an open border with Northern Ireland. For Cyprus, in contrast, non-membership has been a forced choice.
The issue for Cyprus has always been political. Joining the Schengen Area would mean that the dividing line will be considered an external EU border, which would be tantamount to recognition of partition – a formal acceptance by the Republic that its sovereignty does not go beyond the dividing line.
This has always been the main, insurmountable obstacle to Cyprus becoming part of the Schengen Area and it is difficult to know what has changed now to justify the president’s optimism. Have we thought of some ingenious interpretation on international law by which the dividing line would be an EU frontier but not an external border? Anything is possible even though there is another snag. There is no guarantee that all 29 members of the Schengen Area would agree to Cyprus becoming part of the area, even if all technical requirements have been met.
