OEB – CCCI IN A JOINT SESSION
THE BUSINESS WORLD UNITED AND DETERMINED
The Executive Committees of the Cyprus Employers & Industrialists Federation (OEB) and the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCCI), convened today, Thursday, October 2, 2025, in a joint session in order to finalize the strategic planning and coordinate the actions of the two Organizations in a unified manner in three priority areas for the business world: cost of living adjustment (COLA), Pension System Reform and Tax Reform.
The joint session, the first since the establishment of the two Organizations, confirms the unity of the business world and the determination of its Bodies to ensure the competitiveness of the real economy and the sustainability of public finances in the long term and at the same time to protect the system of tripartite cooperation which supported political understanding and ensured labor peace in the country. economic growth and social well-being.
For COLA, OEB and CCCI decided:
- To underline their commitment to the Code of Industrial Relations and their determination to defend labour institutions, as consolidated by the actors of trilateral cooperation for sixty years, and to stress again that the universal application of the cost of living adjustment (COLA)is out of the question,
- To declare their genuine willingness for discussion in order to evolve and rationalize / modernize this system that has been abolished in Europe, by adopting a mechanism that will take into account the health of the economy, the defense of national competitiveness and the maintenance of fiscal stability without burdening businesses,
- To remind that the employer side has made a major withdrawal from its long-standing position for the abolition of the COLA, having accepted in 2023 an increase in the percentage from 50% to 66.7% for a transitional period, with the commitment that through dialogue until the summer of 2025, the system will be modernized,
- To reiterate their commitment to safeguard the supreme good of labor peace, abstaining from any act or omission that potentially creates tension or leads to dynamic confrontation, excluding for the foreseeable future the exercise of Constitutionally guaranteed employer rights and extending a hand of cooperation to the workers and their trade union representatives,
- In view of the processes initiated by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Cyprus, OEB and CCCI will not currently make any further announcements, statements and/or public positions.
Due to a long and extensive discussion on the cost of living adjustment (COLA), the examination of the other 2 items on the agenda is postponed to the next session.
