President Nikos Christodoulides on Tuesday evening departed from Geneva and headed for Brussels, where a European Council summit is set to take place on Thursday.

On Wednesday, he is expected to hold separate meetings with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.

He will then on Thursday attend a conference organised by the European People’s Party, the centre-right pan-European political group to which he belongs, before attending the summit itself with the European Union’s 26 other member states’ heads of government.

The Cyprus government confirmed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will hold a videoconference with the EU’s 27 member states’ heads of government, while the 27 will also hold a working lunch with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

There will then be a summit of Eurozone member states, before a debate on defence issues and the presentation of the white paper on defence which passed through the European parliament last week.

It has also been reported that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be in Brussels.

The white paper aims to forge a plan for the bloc and the continent at large to bolster its defensive capabilities, and passed a European parliament vote on Wednesday with two amendments explicitly mentioning Cyprus added to it.

Both amendments were largely the same in terms of language and effect, with one being put forward by Akel MEP Giorgos Georgiou and the other by Elam MEP Geadis Geadi.

Georgiou’s amendment read that the EU “reiterates its call on Turkey, a Nato member, to withdraw its troops from Cyprus, an EU member state, and work constructively to find a viable and peaceful solution based on the relevant United Nations resolutions”, with all six Cypriot MEPs voting in favour of it.

Geadi’s amendment, meanwhile, read that the EU “reiterates its call on Turkey, a Nato member state and an EU candidate country, to abide by international law, recognise the Republic of Cyprus, and immediately end the occupation and withdraw its troops from the island”.