I HAD great difficulty sleeping on Friday night, after hearing that our dear Kyproulla, the pylon of stability and security of the East Med, is “under existential threat.”

And this was not said by our Prez, who has a real talent for meaningless statements, but by our authoritative Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos, at a meeting of the House foreign affairs committee on Friday.

Speaking to deputies, Kombos said “we are under existential threat, there is the occupation force, there is the daily disputing of the standing of the Cyprus Republic” and opposite us “we have an opponent, that has no relation with Turkey of previous years.”

Have the Turks become even more bloodthirsty, barbaric, expansionist and intransigent than they were, to now pose an existential threat to us that they never posed in the last 50 years? None of our politicians – certainly no other foreign minister – ever said such a thing in the last 50 years, so why is Kombos irresponsibly spreading alarm, which could cause more young Cypriots to leave the country?

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The government appears to be sending mixed signals. How can a country that from January 1 will have the presidency of the EU Council and be “at the front of Europe” simultaneously, be under existential threat? Would our existence end while chairing the EU Council?

THE EXISTENTIAL threat and greater Turkish menace, I suspect, was used by Kombos to justify the 28 per cent increase in the 2026 budget of the foreign ministry, which is now planning on leaving its diplomatic footprint in Africa, to counter Turkey’s “active presence” and “intensive” operations.

The foreign ministry has set up an Africa Department, while the cabinet has approved the opening of an embassy in Ethiopia. Our expansion in Africa does not end there. Phil reported that the establishment of diplomatic relations with Djibouti, Congo, Somalia and Central African Republic are under way, because “they have strategic importance in the geopolitical map of the continent.”

Our takeover of Africa will be further boosted by visits of African leaders to Cyprus but more significantly through ‘Cyprus Aid’, another revelation made by Kombos after the meeting at the House. We will be filling the gap left by President Tump’s decision to scrap US Aid.

He said there is a plan “for further utilisation of all the instruments of soft power that could arise from Cyprus Aid through the provision of development and humanitarian assistance that will help us gain access to countries with which we want to cultivate relations, through the offer of scholarships, the funding of humanitarian programmes and the funding of development programmes.

How can he talk of an existential threat when we are expanding our influence in Africa?

THE TAXPAYER’S money will now be used to fund our Prez’s delusions of grandeur which have taken epidemic proportions, opening more embassies and giving financial aid to foreign countries.

The least productive ministry of the country will be getting more money in order “to expand our diplomatic footprint so that we have those relations that could create a bulwark against Turkey’s efforts to upgrade the illegal occupation entity.”

Preventing the upgrading of the occupation entity is the only thing that the foreign ministry has been doing pretty efficiently for decades, so why does it suddenly need to waste a lot more money than in the past to achieve this noble end?

THE BUILDING of the Kyproulla empire will not be limited to the expansion of our influence in Africa. Prezniktwo told The Economist Annual Cyprus Summit on Tuesday that he was working on creating a regional security and cooperation organisation “for the broader Middle East”.

The organisation that Kyproulla PSS (pillar of stability and security) would “resemble Nato or OSCE (Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe)” he said, keeping a straight face. There was still a lot of work to be done.

For now, he said: “We are working – and it might seem a grandiose target – in the direction of the maturation of the necessary political conditions for the forming of a regional organisation of security and cooperation, of an OSCE or Nato, of the broader Middle East that would highlight the benefits from the cooperation of all of us, through the promotion of regional cooperation.”

He did not say how many years or decades it would take for the ripening of the political conditions. Nor did he say whether he would invite Turkey to participate in this organisation, despite the existential threat it poses to our expanding empire.

WHAT are the chances of setting up a security and cooperation organisation of rival Middle East countries when you cannot resolve a run-of-the-mill dispute between unions and employers? It was three days after last Sunday’s meeting at the presidential palace that Keve and Oev decided to reject the government’s CoLA proposal.

Union bosses took the moral high ground after the employers’ rejection of the proposal, but why wouldn’t they? They were given everything they asked for – 100 per cent of CoLA within 20 months for everyone entitled to it, including the top earners – so they had not exactly made any compromise.

Keve and Oev felt that if the government proposal was accepted it would open the way to the infamous idea of ‘CoLA for all’ which was a red line for them. Sek chief Andreas Matsas saw conspiracy behind the rejection, claiming there was “an invisible hand” that “pulls everything apart.” He could not say who the invisible hand belonged to, as it was invisible.

Meanwhile the Prez, who contributed to the mess with his crowd-pleasing ‘CoLA for all’ proposal, said there were two or three other options, for tackling the problem. He did not say what they were as he must be waiting for the maturation of conditions before activating them.

THERE were celebrations at the presidential palace after it was announced that Norway would be lifting the 65-year arms embargo it had imposed on Kyproulla. The news, according to the Prez’s Phil spokesman and propagandist, Andreas Bimbishis, was conveyed to the Prez by Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide on Friday.

The lifting of the embargo had its significance for us, wrote Bimbishis, who gets his news straight from the horse’s mouth.  As the horse told him, for some time now, Kyproulla had expressed an interest in buying military binoculars from Norway. After Friday’s phone call, “the road opens for the purchase of this modern system,” he said.

With the continuous upgrade of our defence capabilities, I am certain we can see off any existential threat, despite the defeatism of our foreign minister.

BARTH Eide is the man who had brought the two sides closer than they had ever been to a settlement in 2017, but was rewarded for this by Preznikone unleashing his rottweilers against him with orders to destroy his reputation.

They tried – he was accused being a liar, a Turkish agent, dishonest – and Mr Honesty Anastasiades even claimed he would report Eide for his lies to the UNSG. I am sure our Nik never did so, as Eide was a good and honest man in stark contrast to the man who was making these false allegations.

Having our Nik issuing ‘honesty certificates’ is beyond ironic. Anyway, Eide, despite being a scheming liar, was appointed foreign minister of his country, which sets much higher ethical standards for its politicians than PSS.