Cyprus trails EU average on key democracy indicators, report finds

Politics Top News Cyprus trails EU average on key democracy indicators, report finds People Protest A Bill Regulating Public Gatherings Nicosia. February 26 Relevant News Cyprus trails EU average on key democracy indicators, report finds 15 September 2026 Part of Tseriou Street in Strovolos to close for three days from Thursday 15 September 2026 Limassol ketamine bust amounts to 790,000 doses, police say 15 September 2026 newsroom 15 September 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber Cyprus ranks among the world’s top 40 countries in all four areas of democratic performance measured by International IDEA, but remains below the EU average across each of them, with participation and the rule of law emerging as its weakest areas. The findings come from the Global State of Democracy 2026: Democracy in an Age of Conflict, released by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance on September 15, the International Day of Democracy. The latest quantitative data cover 2025. International IDEA does not produce a single overall democracy score. Instead, it assesses countries separately in four categories: Representation, Rights, Rule of Law and Participation. Its Cyprus country profile places the Republic 30th globally for Representation, 25th for Rights, 29th for Rule of Law and 40th for Participation among 173 countries. A calculation based on International IDEA’s 2025 scores for the current 27 EU member states shows Cyprus below the bloc average in all four categories. Cyprus scores 0.781 in Representation, compared with an EU-27 average of about 0.786, and 0.759 in Rights, against an EU average of around 0.778. The gap is wider in the other two areas. Cyprus scores 0.681 in Rule of Law, compared with an EU-27 average of about 0.708, and 0.689 in Participation, against approximately 0.719 across the bloc. International IDEA classifies scores between 0.7 and 1 as high performance and those between 0.4 and 0.7 as mid-range. Cyprus therefore falls into the high-performing group for Representation and Rights, but remains in the mid-range for Rule of Law and Participation. Participation stands out as the main weakness Participation is the area in which Cyprus performs least strongly relative to the other three categories. International IDEA’s Cyprus profile says the country is in the world’s top 25% for most individual democracy factors, but falls into the bottom 25% specifically for Electoral Participation. Participation in the IDEA framework also includes civil society and civic engagement, rather than measuring voter turnout alone. The latest ranking, however, does not yet capture an important development from this year. Turnout in Cyprus’s May 24 parliamentary election rose to 66.4% from 63.9% in 2021, according to International IDEA’s Democracy Tracker. Eleven women were also elected to the 56-seat House of Representatives, up from eight in the previous parliament and the highest number recorded in Cyprus. Because the Global State of Democracy indices run only through the end of 2025, those developments are not reflected in the rankings published on Tuesday. Cyprus strong on rights, but earlier warning signs remain Rights remains Cyprus’s strongest global ranking, at 25th place. International IDEA nevertheless identified some areas of concern in its Cyprus profile before the new report was published. Between 2019 and 2024, it recorded declines in Social Group Equality and Freedom of the Press, including measures linked to harassment of journalists and media bias. Those findings should not be read as new deterioration recorded in 2025. International IDEA’s narrative Cyprus assessment was last updated in July 2025 and refers specifically to changes over the 2019-2024 period. The broader 2026 report finds that freedom of expression, press freedom and access to justice are among the democratic indicators under pressure internationally, while deterioration in the rule of law remains one of its central concerns. Rule of law below the high-performance threshold Cyprus’s 29th-place ranking for Rule of Law remains relatively high globally, but its score of 0.681 leaves it just below International IDEA’s threshold for high performance. The category measures judicial independence, absence of corruption, predictable enforcement of public authority and personal integrity and security. Cyprus’s position is also below the EU-27 average, which stands just above the 0.7 high-performance threshold. The latest ranking does not, however, establish that Cyprus is undergoing a new rule-of-law decline. International IDEA cautions against treating small changes in rankings as proof of significant deterioration or improvement, particularly because a country’s position can also shift as other states move up or down. A report focused on democracy and conflict This year’s Global State of Democracy report places particular emphasis on the connection between democratic decline and violent conflict. International IDEA says the erosion of democratic governance can increase the conditions associated with both domestic and international conflict, while stronger democratic institutions can act as a buffer against violence. International IDEA also makes clear that its quantitative Cyprus data cover only conditions in the government-controlled areas of the Republic of Cyprus, rather than the whole island. Overall, the figures show a country that remains comparatively strong by global standards, particularly in Rights and Representation, but which still trails the EU average across all four broad democracy categories. The clearest gaps are in Participation and Rule of Law, while the increase in voter turnout recorded in May 2026 offers an early indication that at least part of the participation picture may look different when next year’s data are published. 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