The General Secretary of AKEL Stefanos Stefanou meets with the Co-Chair of the Left Group in the European Parliament
2 December 2025, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia
The General Secretary of AKEL Stefanos Stefanou met today with Martin Schirdewan, Co-Chair of the Left Group in the European Parliament. The meeting took place on the occasion of the visit of the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament ahead of the Republic of Cyprus’s upcoming assumption of the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU.
During the meeting, they briefed each other and exchanged views on critical socio-economic issues resulting from the EU’s austerity and deregulation policies that working people and European societies as a whole are facing. The need for the EU to change course from militarization, which has only negative effects both within the EU itself and internationally, and to respect international law, far from pursuing double standards policies, was stressed. With regards to Cyprus, the meeting emphasized that the EU cannot include Turkey in cooperations of a military nature.
The General Secretary of AKEL briefed Martin Schirdewan on the current situation on the Cyprus problem and AKEL’s position on the need to resume the talks from where they had left off at Crans-Montana. S.Stefanou thanked the Left Group for its steadfast principled position on the reunification of Cyprus and its people on the basis of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with political equality. S.Stefanou particularly stressed the Left’s continued support for the efforts to determine the fate of the missing persons, both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, and through the strengthening of the Committee of Missing Person’s funds.
Martin Schirdewan was accompanied by the Left Group’s General Secretary, Maj Aslett-Rydbjerg, and Stelios Christodoulou, assistant General Secretary of the Group, while the General Secretary of AKEL was accompanied by Vera Polycarpou, Head of the International Relations and European Policy Department of AKEL.
