President Christodoulides’ ‘Minds in Cyprus’ initiative, which was launched at London’s Guildhall last week, appears to have been a resounding success considering the interest that was shown. The presentation was moved to the Guildhall because the number of people that registered to attend was too high for the original venue. More than 700 people attended the Wednesday evening event at which Christodoulides presented the tax incentives offered by the government to UK-based Cypriots to return to Cyprus.

The marketing of the initiative was impressive, as has come to be expected of a government that excels in communication and messaging. Although the initiative was marketed as a pioneering attempt to reverse an alleged brain drain and turn it into a ‘brain gain’, it was nothing new. It was a re-packaging of a policy introduced by the Anastasiades government in 2022. A finance ministry official, Rena Makri, told deputies that the “purpose (of the bill) is to improve the existing tax framework of 2022, making it more attractive, more flexible and broader”.

The bill approved by the council of ministers raised the tax exemption from 20 to 25 per cent, while the maximum amount exempted from tax was increased from €8,550 to €25,000. The period of working abroad, after graduation, was reduced from 15 to seven years for someone to be eligible to the tax breaks. Makri said this was “a very important action for the repatriation of talent”, even though it transpired at the House finance committee on Monday that it was not only Cypriots who were eligible to the tax breaks but foreign nationals as well. It was foreign nationals that the Anastasiades government had targeted with 2022 law.

In what appears to have become the government’s style, the bill was not thought through. For example, the term ‘talent’ was not defined in the bill and although there is reference to the ‘repatriation of Cypriots from abroad’, it applies to ‘talent’ of all nationalities. And this is not all ‘talent’, but only that dealing with STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). While allowances would be made for finance talent, the government does not seem interested in repatriating social science brains. It only wants STEM brains back and offers no tax incentives to other brains.

Several deputies pointed out that conditions of unfavourable discrimination and unequal treatment of Cypriot citizens were being created by the government’s bill. Perhaps we are missing something but why would a Cypriot already working in the tech and innovation sector pay significantly more tax on their income than someone who had been working abroad all his professional life? And is it not discrimination not to offer tax breaks to social science graduates working in the UK, who might also contribute to the ‘brain gain’ the government desires.

The Brain Gain drive needs to return to the drawing board because, in its eagerness to make it more attractive the government has created big holes.