Martha Kehagias
Cyprus is back before the European Union’s highest court over its waste-management record, more than a decade after the last major ruling against the Republic.
The European Commission has referred the country to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to apply the Landfill Directive and the Waste Framework Directive correctly. According to the Commission, 21 per cent of the waste generated in Cyprus is still going straight into landfill without the required pre-treatment. The island also lacks sufficient capacity to treat mixed municipal waste.
The new case focuses on the absence of proper treatment before waste reaches landfill sites and on Cyprus’ failure to build an integrated network of waste facilities. The problem is especially sharp in Paphos, where municipal waste has been landfilled without any pre-treatment.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment said on Friday that steps to bring the country into line are already under way. Officials stressed that the referral concerns shortcomings identified in earlier years rather than an entirely new crisis.
A long-running problem
This is not the first time Cyprus has faced the EU courts over waste. In 2013 the Court of Justice ruled against the Republic for failing to close or properly manage uncontrolled landfill sites, including Kotsiatis in the Nicosia district and Vati in Limassol. Those sites have continued to feature in EU proceedings. In 2025 the Commission returned to court over Cyprus’ delays in closing and rehabilitating both locations.
The older sites, however, form only part of the picture.
A separate infringement procedure opened in December 2021 after a Commission study found problems in three of Cyprus’ five districts. In Paphos, municipal waste was reaching landfill without any treatment at all. The Commission also concluded that Cyprus had not established an adequate network of facilities for mixed municipal waste. That case advanced in December 2024 when Brussels issued a reasoned opinion, the formal step that usually precedes a court referral. The October 2026 action is the result of that process.
Warnings have continued in parallel. In 2023 the Commission listed Cyprus among the member states at risk of missing EU targets for preparing municipal waste for reuse and recycling, as well as longer-term goals for reducing landfill. In 2025, concerns resurfaced over the performance of existing facilities and the country’s continued dependence on landfill. Knews reported in April that roughly half the recyclable material entering the Koshi plant was ending up in landfill, while questions were also raised about operations in Paphos and at Pentakomo. A separate report in May covered the ongoing court action over Kotsiatis and Vati.
The pattern is therefore not a sudden escalation in 2026 but a series of overlapping problems that have generated different EU procedures, assessments and court cases for more than a decade.
What the government says it is doing
The Agriculture Ministry maintains that work is already in progress. Plans include upgrades at the Pentakomo and Koshi facilities. Officials say the infrastructure being put in place as a temporary measure should, where possible, remain useful once a more permanent system is in place.
In Paphos the priority is to build capacity that keeps more waste out of the municipal stream by separating recyclables and organic material. The ministry also points to expanded separate collection, better use of existing plants and efforts to boost recycling, all aimed at cutting the volume of waste that ends up in landfill.
Authorities have also been tackling illegal dumping at local level through clean-up campaigns and other enforcement measures.
More than ten years after the 2013 ruling, the latest referral is simply the newest chapter in a longer story. Unresolved old landfill sites, missing pre-treatment, insufficient infrastructure, missed recycling targets and illegal dumping all form parts of the same challenge: moving Cyprus away from a system that has relied heavily on burying waste and towards the treatment, reuse and recycling approach required by EU law.
The ministry says that transition is now under way.
