Act III · The argumentsStory 27 of 31
The ten biggest projects
The ten largest projects in the state budget will cost close to a billion euro. A quarter of that had been paid by the end of June 2026, and for four of the ten nothing has been paid at all.
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"Development spending" is an abstraction. These are its ten largest items: a museum, a housing scheme, a courthouse, a laboratory, a prison and five roads.
The ten largest infrastructure projects in the state budget by final cost. Outline: the full cost. Filled: paid by the end of June 2026.
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Treasury of the Republic, report on the execution of the state budget for the first half of 2026, table of the ten largest projects in Annex 2A of the budget. Cash basis, VAT included. Project names are shortened in the source; our English names are a reading of them.
What the numbers say
Each outline is what a project is budgeted to cost in total. The filled part is what the state had paid by the end of June 2026.
Together the ten will cost €971 million. By then €245 million had been paid, a quarter of the total.
They are at very different stages. The Astromeritis to Evrychou motorway is almost fully paid for, at 96%. The new Cyprus Museum, the largest of the ten at €146 million, is 42% paid. The Paphos to Polis Chrysochous road, at €107 million, is 26% paid.
For four projects nothing has been paid yet: the road from Deneia to Astromeritis, the Nicosia court building, the new State General Laboratory and the new prison. Together they account for €390 million of the total.
The budget for 2026 gave these ten projects €101 million. In the first half of the year €13 million of it was paid out, or 13%.
What it means for you
A payment is not the same thing as progress on the ground. The state pays for work after it has been done and certified, so a project can be well under way with little yet paid. But over several years the two cannot stay far apart, and a project with nothing paid has at most reached design or tender.
It also puts the headline in proportion. The development budget for 2026 is €1.62 billion. The ten biggest projects were given about six euro in every hundred of it. Most development spending is made up of many smaller things.
What people argue
Why does it take so long? The Fiscal Council reads slow payment as a sign that the state lacks the capacity to deliver what it announces. The Ministry of Finance points out that spending on development is running above its ten-year average for the time of year. Both can be true of a list where one project is almost fully paid for and four have not been paid a euro.
Are these the right ten? The list is ranked by cost, not by need. Nine of the ten are buildings and roads. Whether a museum and a courthouse should come before water or energy is a political choice, and the table records the choice without judging it.
How we know
The table is from the Treasury's report on the execution of the state budget for the first half of 2026, which lists the ten largest projects in the budget's annex of projects by their final cost. The figures are cash payments and include VAT. The ten-year average the Ministry of Finance cites is printed in the Treasury's reports for the first half and to August 2026. The Fiscal Council's reading is as reported in the press, from its Interim Report 2026 of 24 September 2026, which discusses the 25% figure.
The Treasury shortens the project names. Our English names are a reading of those abbreviations, and for one, a pair of avenues, we could not establish the full names.