Cyprus received €461 million euros in EU funding since accession, used 80%

Cyprus has received a net €461 million since joining the EU, according to Lazarou, and has used 80% of the European funds it received.

Member of the European Court of Auditors, Lazaros Lazarou said Thursday that Cyprus had used 80% of its European funds for the programming period 2014-2020, adding that between 2004, when the country became a full EU member state, until the end of 2021, Cyprus is a net recipient of approximately 461 million euro.

The ECA member was speaking at the joint meeting of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial and Budgetary Affairs and the Committee on Development Plans and Public Expenditure Control where he presented his 2021 annual report.

Lazarou, whose term in office ends on the 1st of November, said that Cyprus is doing very well in terms of absorption of funds adding that until the end of September the percentage reached around 80% of the absorption for the previous programming period 2014 – 2020. He pointed out that for that particular period there is room for further absorption of funds until the end of 2023.

In 2021, he said, Cyprus was a net recipient of around 133 million euros of the EU budget.

Lazarou pointed out that every year there is a variation as to whether a country is a contributor or a recipient, as "some years we are net contributors and some years net recipients". He added that since 2004 when Cyprus joined the EU until the end of 2021 Cyprus was a total net recipient of approximately 461 million euros.

Concluding, Lazarou said that for the period between 2021 – 2027 which includes NextGeneration EU and part of which is the Recovery and Resilience mechanism, Cyprus will receive a total of 2.9 billion euros, of which 1.2 billion euros is for the NextGeneration EU.