Children born in Cyprus to one Cypriot parent and the other from a third country are being denied Cypriot citizenship and complaints have spurred the House human rights committee to demand answers from the interior ministry.
The committee discussed the issue on Monday, with chairman of the committee, Akel MP Giorgos Koukoumas, saying that by law children with a Cypriot citizenship parent are also Cypriot citizens, however difficulties arise when the other parent is an illegal immigrant.
In these cases, Koukoumas said, citizenship is not granted automatically, but by the cabinet, which has set certain criteria that were revised in 2024.
“The big question is if the interior ministry is promoting proposals to the cabinet for the children meeting the criteria and if there has been an answer, as the ombudswoman’s report said the ministry was not promoting cases to the cabinet and condemning these children to uncertainty,” he said.
Koykoumas added that only 80 relevant applications have been promoted over the past decade.
Disy MP Rita Superman said there were grey zones with conflicting elements, adding that there was a “tremendous delay” in examining the cases, due to the criteria implemented for Turkish Cypriots marrying Turkish citizens.
Independent MP Alexandra Attalidou said children could not be left without citizenship, as this had to do with access to health, social welfare and education.
On behalf of the ombudswoman, Theodora Natsi said the report focused on not promoting the applications, not the essence of granting citizenship.
She said there had been 30 complaints concerning children with a Greek Cypriot parent and a third country parent, who were born and brought up in Cyprus.
Natsi said the ombudswoman’s office was receiving standard answers from the civil registry regarding the criteria, without any indication on approvals or dismissals or information regarding countries with a reciprocity status.
On behalf of the commissioner for the protection of children, Eleni Kodjamani said the main problem was the delay in examining applications, which had been frozen over the past years by the two previous ministers.
The current minister, she said, announced that the process had restarted in November and that 40 applications had been promoted, while 600 others were pending.
Another problem, she said, had to do with the fact that applicants were put on a waiting list, which did not give them the right to appeal.
Based on the complaints, most cases are about one parent being Cypriot and the other an applicant for international protection or asylum, or an illegal immigrant, or held a permit which expired, or the Cypriot parent is now a single parent.
Also, children who entered illegally with their parents were not entitled to citizenship despite having grown up in Cyprus.
Representing the interior ministry, Natasa Economou said the law provided that all children with a Cypriot parent were entitled to citizenship, unless the other person was in Cyprus illegally.
The criteria were set in 2007 and revised in 2024, mostly concerning Turkish settlers.
Since the crossing points opened in 2003, there have been 500 approvals of applications, while since 2024, 96 cases had been sent to the cabinet, most of which were from Turkish Cypriots.
Furthermore, 760 applications by Turkish Cypriots meeting the criteria and 2,885 applications by Turkish Cypriot not meeting the criteria were still pending.
Economou said that regarding cases such as the ones discussed by the committee, 25 had been sent to the cabinet and approved in 2024 despite the fact that they did not meet the criteria, while 20 cases were still pending with one Greek Cypriot parent and the other an illegal immigrant.