Opposition slams president’s lack of vision

Opposition parties gave a lukewarm response on Tuesday to President Nikos Christodoulides’  presentation of government goals for 2024 made a day earlier.

“Certainly the president and the government will be judged by their actions and works,” Akel said after the president outlined a series of 80 points where action will be taken.

The party added that until today, the government has set itself a high bar only to “pass underneath it”.

According to the party, the president didn’t say anything new that hadn’t been stated previously during his election campaign.

Meanwhile opposition Disy called the president a “copycat”, saying that most of what the president said on Monday was a repeat of what ministers said during their budget presentations to parliament.

“It is completely natural that the action that will be enacted in 2024 will reflect the budget we passed,” the party said.

Also included in the budget are all the development projects that were planned and the implementation of the reforms that “we voted for a few years ago.”

“Therefore, we do not see any conditions being created for a new vision,” the party added.

The party said that the challenge is to “not announce the same things over and over again”, but rather to enact on them with determination.

“For example, all the pending bills in the health sector have been waiting to come before parliament for a long time.”

In the context of the budget review, Disy has submitted recommendations that “we will insist be accepted and implemented”.

These include further support for families with three or more children.

“Our only proposal that was partially accepted and we were pleased to hear yesterday is the extension of maternity leave to 22 weeks from the first child.”

“With regard to voting rights at 17, we have already tabled legislative proposals from June 1, 2023. The government must at last start to be properly informed so that they are not given the fallacy of copying,” the party added.

Meanwhile Finance Minister Makis Keravnos said his ministry is ready ready to meet all the goals outlined by Christodoulides and especially those set in the 2024 annual programme.

“During the 11 months of governance, a lot has been done and solid foundations have been laid to continue the government’s productive work,” he added.

“We must move forward with goals and making every effort to implement them for the benefit of our country, our economy and our society,” he said.

Asked if the economy can support the other goals announced by the president, he said that “because we act proactively we already have a budget for 2024 that has a significant primary surplus just for this reason, to respond to what we have promised to the Cypriot people but also what we must do as a European country in a modern world, which is constantly evolving.”