Filenews 26 November 2025 - by Theano Thiopoulou
The European Commission places Cyprus on the list of the best students of fiscal rules, giving the green light to the draft state budget for 2026 submitted to it by the Ministry of Finance.
In the part of the autumn package of the European Semester released yesterday by the Commission, Cyprus is on the list of 12 Eurozone member states that submitted draft budgets that are in line with the European financial framework, along with Greece, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Portugal and Slovakia.
On the other hand, the Commission identifies a risk of non-compliance in the budgets of Spain, Croatia, Lithuania and Slovenia and significant risks in the budgets of Malta and the Netherlands.
The Commission also assessed budgetary developments and the outlook in the other Member States: Seven Member States are assessed as compliant: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Romania. Three Member States are assessed as at risk of non-compliance: Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain.
We can talk about the debt
The Commission published surveillance reports following the financial support programmes that preceded the widespread economic crisis, for Ireland, Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Portugal, assessing their economic, fiscal and financial situation, with a focus on repayment capacity. The reports conclude that all five Member States retain their debt servicing capacity.
For the first time, the Commission has proposed a Council Recommendation on human capital. The new Recommendation addresses all 27 Member States and calls for urgent actions to address structural challenges related to human capital that can harm competitiveness.
The Recommendation calls on Member States to prioritise the education and skills needed in strategic sectors for the EU economy, from the clean transition, the circular economy and the decarbonisation of industry, health and biotechnology, agriculture and the bioeconomy, to the defence industry and space. Therefore, the Commission is calling for stronger programmes in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). It also requires reversing the negative trend in basic skills. This is essential for developing a future workforce with a strong foundation to work and train in new technologies and competitive industries.
Finally, it underlines the importance of good quality and timely data and analyses that keep pace with the evolution of the economy and are able to anticipate the emerging professions of the future, so that policies can respond to the needs of today and tomorrow and not those of yesterday.
