A decade-old environmental dispute in Limassol, Cyprus, is raising questions over Costas Kadis’ run for EU commissioner.
On Feb. 5, 2023, about a month before Costas Kadis was replaced as Cypriot environment minister, a report landed on his desk.
It said that the government was responsible for years of illegal waste dumping in the southern region of Limassol, via a waste treatment project paid for by the EU.
These findings are now following Kadis to Brussels, where he is hoping to become Europe’s next commissioner for oceans and fisheries, but must face a parliamentary grilling first.
In 2015, the European Union gave Cyprus over €46 million to build a public waste treatment facility in the village of Pentakomo that would sort and recycle the waste collected locally and use some of it to make fuel. The money had been given with the condition that the Cypriot government would find buyers for the fuel.
But that fuel was never sold and has been buried, in contravention of EU law, ever since the plant began operating.