Irregular migrant arrivals have dropped 87% and repatriations have spiralled yet Cyprus is getting loads of EU funds as a frontline state

An apparent contradiction has emerged in recent weeks, on the subject of migrants and asylum seekers.

On the one hand, the government’s refrain for most of the past year has been how much the situation has improved – and indeed, the numbers show a sharp diminution of what was previously described as a migrant crisis.

Irregular migrant arrivals have dropped by 87 per cent compared to 2022, according to deputy minister of immigration and international protection Nicholas Ioannides.

UNHCR figures show a total of 2,281 irregular arrivals to date in 2025 (750 by sea, 1,531 by land). In 2022 that number was 17,286, 3,952 by sea and a staggering 13,334 by land – meaning people who arrived by air from Turkey and crossed through the buffer zone into the Republic. Even in 2024, the total was 6,097, more than twice this year’s.

At the same time, 10,628 people have been returned to their home countries in the first 10 months of 2025, on course to break last year’s record of 10,944.

Cyprus also has the lowest recognition rate for asylum seekers in the region, with 69.8 per cent of first-instance decisions being rejections (in the EU as a whole it’s 48.6 per cent), according to a publication called ‘Asylum Data: Beyond the EU Average’.

Only 30.2 per cent of applicants are successful, and only 10.5 per cent get refugee status. In Greece, that number (for refugee status) is 71 per cent, a massive difference – though the mix of nationalities is also different, so the two aren’t directly comparable.

Despite all of the above, however, the European Commission recently proposed the formation of an EU Solidarity Pool – and included Cyprus among the frontline states which will be eligible to access it.

The proposed ‘solidarity mechanism’, part of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, will combine migrant relocation and financial aid. “The minimum threshold for relocations, at EU level, is set at 30,000 applicants… and the minimum financial contribution is €600 million,” according to the European Parliamentary Research Service – though countries can choose a bit of both.

The Pool is expected to come into application in mid-2026 – and Cyprus, along with Greece, Spain and Italy, is among the countries automatically eligible for it, defined as being “under migratory pressure due to the disproportionate level of arrivals over the last year”.

Meanwhile, it’s also been announced that the deputy ministry’s budget for 2026 is being set at €75.3 million, about €20 million more than in 2025.

It all seems a bit contradictory. Why, if we’re doing so well with irregular migrants, are we also under such migratory pressure as to warrant special EU help – and why does the deputy ministry of immigration require more, not less, money?

The latter point, at least, is straightforward, according to Angeliki Nikolaidou, the deputy ministry’s press officer.

“The reason for the increase is because some infrastructure work is being completed in the next year,” she told the Cyprus Mail – a fair point, since the deputy ministry was only established in 2024. “[The budget] will go down again afterwards.”

We should also note that the Solidarity Pool is still a proposal at this stage. It still has to be adopted by the European Council (i.e. the member states), which could decide to make changes – though it’d be surprising if they chose to remove Cyprus from its category, since the four ‘Mediterranean frontline states’ have always been lumped together.

We’re actually a regional outlier in having seen a decrease recently. Spain, Greece and Italy all saw more arrivals in the first quarter of 2025, compared to the equivalent in 2024. In Spain, the increase – driven largely by applicants from Venezuela – was 92 per cent. In Greece, where it’s mostly Sudanese and Afghans, it was 85 per cent.

Our own improved situation is a fragile thing, linked to the fact that our applicants previously included large numbers of Syrians and sub-Saharan Africans.

The former have now subsided, due to the fall of the Assad regime – and the latter have largely stopped coming, having previously been the victims of misinformation by smugglers who promised to take them to ‘Europe’.

“There were cases, believe it or not, where they’d land in Cyprus and ask, ‘Where can I take the train to go to Germany?’,” says Nikolaidou. Once the message got through that Cyprus makes a very bad gateway, new routes were found.

That’s a common argument, of course, that many irregular migrants are closer to economic migrants (though all are fleeing a bad situation, or they’d never undertake such a perilous journey). The ‘send them all home’ brigade may question why we even need EU funding – but in fact, despite fewer new arrivals, our situation remains precarious.

“The numbers are down, yes,” says Nikolaidou, “but – in the first place – we still have a backlog.”

This is true. A chart compiled by the EUAA (European Union Agency for Asylum) ranks all EU countries by asylum applications in September 2025. Cyprus had 388 cases, about the same as Slovenia – but Slovenia has 721 pending cases, whereas we have 16,484!

“We also still have a lot of Syrians,” she goes on, “and the situation there is still uncertain. And we’re also in a neighbourhood that creates all these flows – we’re right on their route, if they come. Plus we also have the issue of Turkey” – meaning the soft underbelly of the Green Line – “which is also a factor”.

Then there’s the overlooked problem of integrating our already-existing migrants in local communities.

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” Corina Drousiotou, co-ordinator at the Cyprus Refugee Council, told the Cyprus Mail. 

“Support in schools, support for language skills… Quite basic things that should’ve been happening years ago.” An integration plan “has been under discussion for the past five years,” says Drousiotou, “and it’s been revamped and revamped… So I think that’s where a lot of money has been allocated”.

Getting rid of migrants is the easy part. Helping them cope while they’re here – and assuming they stay here – is significantly harder.

Drousiotou, too, admits she was slightly surprised by news of the Solidarity Pool, and the contradiction with the government’s domestic messaging.

“But because we, as NGOs, often moan that the state is unprepared, I’ll take it [as a sign] that this time you’re trying to be prepared,” she adds pointedly – because a new flow of population “movements” is by no means unlikely.

“I mean, there are no imminent signs right now – but that’s because Gaza is still impossible to get out of. And the situation in Syria is still very volatile.”

Does the deputy ministry also foresee a possible big influx in the near future?

“Well, nobody knows,” replies Nikolaidou. “Because we’d have to be psychic… This is something nobody can say. Our region is turbulent by default.”

Are we at least taking measures, in case it happens?

“The measures we’re taking are to increase our capacity, so we don’t find ourselves in the same position that we found ourselves in 2022 – when Pournara camp was overflowing and we had to put up tents, and you’d be stepping in puddles of pee outside the tents.

“That’s something you’ll never see again. Because now we’re prepared.” 

Infrastructure is being put in place. The new ‘Limnes’ reception centre is being built in the Larnaca district, while changes are being made to speed up processing of all those pending cases.

The EU in general is building a system, says Nikolaidou, through concerted efforts like the Pact on Migration. There’s even talk (though not so much here) of “innovative solutions”: some states are mooting the creation of a “return hub in Africa” for asylum seekers, like the UK’s much-maligned Rwanda plan.

Whether all this will be enough to control irregular migrants remains to be seen. The more awkward question of whether Europe has a moral obligation to help such migrants – especially those fleeing the wars we in the West have incited and financed – is a whole other article.