Mild-mannered Stylianides back in action

Former European Commissioner Christos Stylianides will be appointed special adviser to Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas, Politico’s Playbook said Wednesday.

According to the report, Stylianides will be the European Union’s envoy “on a mandate that includes discrimination prevention, supporting peace-building efforts, inter-religious processes, and deradicalization initiatives in countries outside the EU.”

Stylianides, viewed by many in Nicosia and Brussels as a mild-mannered politician, served as the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management from 2014 until 2019. He also served briefly in 2014 as the bloc’s Ebola coordinator.

In 2019, after the Anastasiades administration chose not to nominate him for another stint in Brussels, Stylianides became a visiting professor at a university in the UK.

The former Commissioner's close associate in Brussels, well-known Cypriot investigative journalist Makarios Drousiotis, went on to publish a tell-all book about corruption during the haircut and financial crisis in the Republic of Cyprus.