The presidential palace on Thursday extolled Cyprus’ relations with the United Arab Emirates, pointing out that those ties allowed for the island to be gifted mobile desalination units from the Gulf state free of charge.

“Foreign policy directly impacts issues of internal governance, with tangible results and benefits for the country and its people. An example is the strategic cooperation between Cyprus and the UAE, which led to the delivery of free mobile desalination units, boosting daily desalinated water production by 15,000 cubic metres,” it said.

This gift, it said, constitutes “a development which highlights the way in which the Republic of Cyprus’ international partnerships can contribute to addressing specific needs and resolving problems within the country”.

Desalinated water has been touted as the future of Cyprus’ supply, with reduced rainfall in recent years and an increase in water consumption islandwide having prompted fears that the available domestic supply may not suffice going forward.

Former agriculture minister Maria Panayiotou said at the end of last year that the government plans to cover Cyprus’ entire drinking water supply with desalinated water.

She said that the government wishes to “end the use of desalination plants as a reserve or on a case-by-case basis”, and thus free up water from the island’s reservoirs to be used for irrigation.

“We are giving a future to our agriculture by ending the insecurity,” she said.

However, not everyone has been impressed by the government’s direction of travel with regard to the issue of water.

Coastal engineer Xenia Loizidou had previously slammed the government’s plan to import mobile desalination plants as an “incoherent panic solution”.

She said the units are “of course a solution”, but that “to really solve the water problem, the first thing which needs to be done is to invest in infrastructure and proper management of uses”.

This, she said, must entail there being “no lawns and golf courses” and an “adaptation” of crops to plant those which are less water intensive.