Members of the House commerce committee on Friday paid a visit to Tillyria, with its chairman, Disy MP Kyriakos Hadjiyiannis calling for a “comprehensive policy” to be devised for the region’s future.

“In no case can it be justified for a serious state to have such an isolated region, both due to its geography and its political situation, but also due to the declining demographic development in the wider region, and for there not to be a comprehensive policy,” he said.

He said the region should be “differentiated as a special regime”, though he pointed out that there is “no precedent here in Cyprus” for such a thing, with the exception of special arrangements made for Greek Cypriots in Rizokarpaso, “where there is an obstacle due to the military occupation and the obstacle imposed on people’s movement”.

On this matter, he said that there is a “similar problem in the Tillyria region, due to the distances and accessibility”, with the region being tucked away in the island’s northwest.

He added that “the conditions for development are not being created, that conditions for investment are not being created”, and that “all this leads to people abandoning the region”.

To reverse this, he said, the first thing which must be done is for the “specific nature of this region to be defined by law”.

“We must find a way to create possibilities for differentiation through the existing legal framework. We cannot follow policies and not be able to specialise them, but we cannot, overall, not apply measures and special policies in special regions which need them, because then, everywhere else comes and demands the same things,” he said.

As such, he said, laws to differentiate the island’s regions must “definitely” be created.

“This, I think, will create an obligation for the executive branch to implement specific policies and specific decisions for the Tillyria region,” he said.

Environment commissioner Antonia Theodosiou also visited the region alongside the committee, and said the plans announced by President Nikos Christodoulides for the region last December “laid a solid foundation for the implementation of projects, actions, and policies”.

Christodoulides had said at the time that he wishes to make the village of Pyrgos a “model green community”, which “aims at climate neutrality, sustainable development and the upgrading of residents’ daily lives”.

He said the idea of a “green community” is a “pioneering project which is part of the broader context of a transition towards a climate neutral Cyprus.

The first policy he announced to this end was the installation of solar panels on 100 buildings, with the aim of reducing energy costs. This was projected to cost €2.2 million and was to be financed by Opap.

Additionally, he said green kiosk recycling centres, green point rubbish tips, and community composters would be rolled out in the area with the aim of “reducing solid and organic waste” and the “production of soil improvement materials”.

He also said the government would build a new wastewater collection network and treatment plant worth €10m to “protect the local aquifer and improve water management infrastructure”.

On Friday, Theodosiou said the government has “already started with some projects in the region which are moving in this direction”, and that the projects being undertaken “are also part of our obligations as an EU member state to lead ourselves towards climate neutrality”.