Members of the European parliament on Wednesday demanded that the European Union allocate an extra €1 million of funding to Cyprus’ committee on missing persons (CMP) and to the bicommunal technical committee on cultural heritage next year, as it debated the European Commission’s proposed EU budget for next year.

The reference to the CMP and to the technical committee on cultural heritage was part of a 91-point text adopted by the European parliament regarding the EU’s budget for next year, and would see the money allocated through the EU’s aid programme for the Turkish Cypriot community.

In its 2025 aid programme, the EU allocated €2.6m to the CMP and €2.5m for the technical committee on cultural heritage.

Of these two allocations, the EU pointed out in September that since 2006, it has now allocated more than €43.7m to the CMP, which it said constitutes “more than 80 per cent of the funding for the CMP in this period”.

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It said of its support for the technical committee on cultural heritage that this year’s allocation brings its total support for it to €35m.

“This support has produced highly visible impact and has helped restore historically important buildings for both communities. By end of 2024, 178 cultural heritage sites across Cyprus had been renovated, restored and protected,” it said.

The total amount of money allocated to the EU’s programme for the Turkish Cypriot community in 2025 was around €33.7m.

More than €750m worth of funding has been allocated to the Turkish Cypriot community through the programme since 2006.

The European Commission says the funding is allocated to “put an end to the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community and to facilitate the reunification of Cyprus by encouraging the economic development of the Turkish Cypriot community”.

To this end, it says the programme emphasises “the economic integration of the island”, “improving contacts between the two communities and the EU”, and “the preparation for the EU body of laws … following a comprehensive settlement to the Cyprus issue”.

It adds that its “specific programme objectives” include to “promote social and economic development in the Turkish Cypriot community”, to “develop and refurbish infrastructure”, and to “foster reconciliation, build confidence, and support civil society”.

Additionally, it says it hopes to “bring the Turkish Cypriot community closer to the EU, through information and contacts between Turkish Cypriots and other EU citizens” and “help the Turkish Cypriot community prepare for the implementation of EU law once a comprehensive settlement to the Cyprus issue is agreed”.

In this endeavour, the EU will be able to count upon the cooperation of the next Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, who is to be sworn in on Friday.

He told a rally of a thousand people in August that “every corner of this island will be Europe”.

“I swear and I promise, there will be no European south or Middle Eastern north on this island. Every corner of this island will be Europe. All young people, regardless of where they were born, will live together in a life worthy of human dignity. We do not accept inequality,” he said at the time.

He won an unprecedented landslide victory in Sunday’s Turkish Cypriot leadership election, unseating his soon-to-be predecessor Ersin Tatar, who supported a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem, and winning a record number of votes for a Turkish Cypriot leader at a single election.