Cyprus takes over the six-month Presidency of the European Council at a critical juncture for the European Union (EU), characterised by intensifying uncertainty, strained alliances and a narrowing circle of reliable partners. Framed by the motto ‘An Autonomous Union. Open to the World.’, the Cypriot Presidency signals commitment to openness and international cooperation, concluding a Trio Presidency with Poland and Denmark that sought to diversify partnerships around the world, including with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). As the EU’s easternmost member state, Cyprus has long positioned itself as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East — and increasingly the Gulf — against a backdrop of ever more intertwined geopolitical dynamics across the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Arabian Sea. Recent crises, including the Gaza war and the Israel-Iran War of June 2025, have further elevated Cyprus’ strategic relevance.

Key Priorities

Cyprus aims to prioritise stronger EU engagement with southern partners and the Gulf, highlighting organisations such as the GCC and the Arab League as key interlocutors linking Europe with Asia and Africa. While the Presidency cannot determine EU foreign or trade policy, it can shape agendas and diplomatic focus to elevate the Middle East and the Gulf within EU external relations. This is reinforced by the fact that all GCC countries now signalled interest in negotiating bilateral Strategic Partnership Agreements with the EU.

Trade and Energy

One of the Presidency’s central objectives is to align the EU’s southern neighbourhood agenda with emerging connectivity corridors, particularly the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Cyprus highlights the EU’s New Pact for the Mediterranean — which seeks to promote trilateral cooperation between the EU, the Middle East and North Africa, and the Gulf — and the need to ensure its compatibility with IMEC. As a flagship initiative, IMEC will position the Gulf states as hubs in trade, logistics and industrial value chains connecting South Asia and Southern Europe, while bypassing the Suez Canal and strengthening EU’s economic security, with Limassol port as one of the principal nodes.

Gulf states, notably Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have increasingly explored investments in Cypriot and Eastern Mediterranean energy and infrastructure projects, ranging from natural gas, subsea cables and electricity interconnectors to ports and logistics. These initiatives aim to enhance regional connectivity and enable the export of renewable power into European markets. Sustaining momentum in the EU-UAE free trade negotiations launched last year, alongside efforts to revive talks on an EU-GCC trade agreement will therefore remain an important task during the Cypriot Presidency.

Politics

Cyprus has supported these geo-economic ambitions through political backing and active regional diplomacy. During the June 2025 Israel-Iran War and the Pakistan-India crisis, Nicosia hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and acted as a diplomatic and logistical hub, maintaining parallel communication channels with Israel, Iran, Middle Eastern actors and the Arab Gulf states, while facilitating evacuations and humanitarian access.

Building on this role, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides plans to host an expanded EU Council Summit in April 2026 involving countries from the broader region, including the Gulf, India and Türkiye. Cyprus will also seek to keep the planned 2nd EU-GCC Summit in Riyadh on the agenda, following the inaugural meeting in October 2024. These efforts are reinforced by Cyprus’ bilateral engagement with the GCC, such as the October 2025 Memorandum of Understanding establishing a framework for regular political consultations and a future joint action. Nicosia also bolstered relations with the UAE during the first-ever visit by a UAE President in December 2025, building on the bilateral Comprehensive Strategic Partnership signed in 2022 and cooperation on humanitarian aid to Gaza via the Amalthea maritime corridor.

Security

As an island-state located in the volatile Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus has a strong stake in maritime security, which is increasingly interconnected across the Mediterranean, Red Sea, the Gulf and beyond. Reflecting this, the Cypriot Presidency prioritises the implementation of the EU Maritime Security Strategy, including through enhanced cooperation with partners in the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, the Gulf, and the Indo-Pacific. This focus reflects the EU’s growing exposure to persistent disruption, ranging from attacks on commercial shipping to risks to undersea cables and energy infrastructure.

Beyond the maritime domain, the external-internal security nexus also features prominently. Cyprus has stressed the need to address EU internal security threats in line with the ProtectEU Strategy released in April 2025, which commits the EU to leveraging the Pact for the Mediterranean to strengthen cooperation with North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf, particulalry on counterterrorism, anti-money laundering, arms and drug trafficking (captagon), highlighting acute shared challenges requiring closer regional coordination. Further deepening security cooperation with the GCC builds on earlier initiatives, such as the EU-GCC Security Dialogue.

Over the past 10 years, periods of strategic convergence between Cyprus, Greece, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been shaped in part by shared concerns about regional instability and competition with Türkiye. Ankara represents a key variable able to significantly constrain Cyprus’s ambitions, with its maritime claims, opposition to energy and logistics projects that bypass its territory, and expanding ties with some Gulf countries. As a non-NATO EU member locked in a simmering conflict with Türkiye (a NATO member), Cyprus has increasingly pursued alternative security arrangements, notably with the US and through its trilateral partnership with Greece and Israel, reaffirmed in December 2025 and closely linked to regional infrastructure initiatives, such as IMEC and the Great Sea Interconnector, relevant to EU’s energy and economic security.

People

Against this security backdrop, mobility has also risen on the agenda. In recent years, GCC countries have expressed growing interest in securing visa-free travel to the Schengen area for their citizens, with the exception of the UAE, which already benefits from this arrangement for a decade. While the Cypriot programme does not explicitly address mobility, visa access is likely to remain an important issue for the GCC in 2026, particularly in light of plans to introduce a unified GCC tourist visa. The Cypriot Presidency also seeks to promote intercultural and interfaith dialogue, which is a domain where several Gulf states, notably Bahrain and the UAE, have invested political capital. Nicosia’s aim to prioritise efforts to combat discrimination and hate, including xenophobia, racism, antisemitism, and anti-Muslim hatred, could offer both an opportunity for engagement and potential friction with the Gulf.

Implications and Outlook

The Cypriot Presidency will test whether the EU can move beyond rhetorical interest in the Gulf and translate its growing economic and security exposure to the region into more coherent, long-term policy. Framing the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and the Gulf as an increasingly interconnected strategic space could help overcome EU’s traditionally fragmented regional approaches. Yet, there are clear limits to what can be achieved within six months. While Nicosia can help shape agendas and generate diplomatic momentum, outcomes will ultimately depend on whether member states can find consensus and align their trade, security and regional priorities with Gulf partners, or whether internal divisions, compounded by shifting Middle Eastern dynamics and the absence of a unified strategic vision among the Gulf states, continue to constrain EU external action.