COLA’s restoration and extension for every working person is what is needed not its dismantling and abolition

 

2 September 2025, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

The COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) is a historic achievement of the Cypriot people, and one that is very valuable in today’s conditions. It protects working people’s wages from expensiveness/inflation and boosts consumption, supporting the economy. That is precisely why it must be maintained, restored, and extended to cover every working person in the country.

Today, the implementation of the agreements on the COLA should have been self-evident, and we should be discussing how and when it will be extended so that it covers all working people in the country. Instead, however, employers’ associations, backed by the Christodoulides government, are plotting to dismantle and ultimately abolish the COLA. The Christodoulides government should have respected its pre- and post-election commitments. It should have rejected the demands of the employers’ associations and defended the COLA’s philosophy and mission. It should have acted in the opposite direction, taking measures to expand the COLA, such as incorporating it into the minimum wage decree, which would have provided support to tens of thousands of low-wage workers in the private sector.

AKEL believes that for the growth recorded by the economy to be meaningful, it must translate into protection and improvement of working people’s incomes.