Cyprus’ powerful civil-service union Pasydy warned on 21 April that it will launch rolling strikes unless the government finalises the transfer of key functions for unaccompanied minors from the deputy ministry of social welfare to the newly created deputy ministry for migration. The Cabinet had decided in December 2025 that the migration portfolio would assume responsibility for accommodation, guardianship and integration programmes for some 900 unaccompanied minors currently in Cyprus, many of whom arrived via irregular sea routes from Lebanon and Syria. Implementation was scheduled for 1 January 2026 but has stalled, leaving social-welfare officers juggling overlapping mandates and stretched budgets. Pasydy officials, emerging from a tense meeting with Deputy Welfare Minister Clea Papaellina, said they want “a concrete, binding timetable” by 21 May and full transfer no later than April 2027. Failure, they said, will trigger industrial action that could include airport and port-health inspectors—critical nodes for visa-on-arrival processing. The standoff matters for global-mobility managers because union-led stoppages have in the past paralysed immigration-permit desks and residency-card printing for weeks at a time, delaying assignee start dates. Multinationals with summer onboarding cycles are being advised to file residence-permit applications early and consider premium-processing channels. A spokesman for the deputy ministry for migration said the timeline is “being reviewed in light of budgetary constraints” but insisted that EU-funded shelters will come under its remit “in the coming months.”
Source: Cyprus Mail
