As part of an international collaboration with media partners in Malta and Portugal, CIReN has been trying for over 12 months to get the names of major commercial underground water extractors on the island, how much water they are licensed to extract and how much they actually extract.
The project was aimed at identifying who is allowed to have a disproportionate footprint in a vital public good – a particularly important issue given that Cyprus, Malta and Portugal all face water scarcity issues. In Cyprus however, getting the data proved to be an impossible task.
Despite the Republic of Cyprus’ freedom of information law – namely the Right to Access to Public Sector Information Law, and European conventions on access to environmental information that have been incorporated into Cyprus law, CIReN was not able to get unredacted information on the main water extractors despite repeated requests to relevant authorities.
Transparency versus confidentiality
CIReN’s official request to the Water Development Department (WDD), which is responsible for managing, developing and protecting the country’s water resources, was based on the Aarhus Convention, which is a landmark international agreement that makes a direct link between environmental and human rights; and the EU Directive 2003/4/EC, which implements the first pillar of the Aarhus Convention, guaranteeing public access to environmental information held by or for public authorities.
Signed in 1998, the Aarhus Convention was built on the premise that sustainable development and environmental protection can only be achieved through government accountability and transparency. The Convention creates a legal obligation for governmental authorities to provide access to environmental information to the public when it is in the public interest. Under the Convention, public authorities are obliged to provide environmental information to any requester, without any justification being required for the request, within a month in most cases. The Republic of Cyprus ratified the convention in 2003 as well as transposing the corresponding EU Directive in 2004.
While the convention does provide for a rejection of disclosure on the grounds of protecting the confidentiality of commercial and industrial information, *”where such confidentiality is protected by law in order to protect a legitimate economic interest”, it makes clear that environmental information can override confidentiality in circumstances where disclosure is necessary to protect the environment or serve the public interest.
Besides the Aarhus Convention, CIReN, in its request for information from the WDD, also cited a law that came into force in Cyprus in 2020 on access to information held by public bodies.
The law on ‘Protection of Know-How and Undisclosed Business Information (Trade Secrets) from Unlawful Acquisition, Use and Disclosure’, openly states that [the law] does not affect “the exercise of the right to freedom of expression and information, as enshrined in the Charter, including respect for the freedom and pluralism of the media.”
Environmental biologist and advocate Natasa Ioannou told CIReN that “In Cyprus, environmental information should not be treated as confidential by default. National security and genuinely protected commercial interests may justify limited exceptions, but environmental information on groundwater use, permits, infrastructure and environmental impacts is clearly in the public interest and should be accessible under the Aarhus Convention.”
“In a country facing increasing pressure on its water resources and natural environment, timely access to information is essential for public scrutiny and accountability,” Ioannou added.
Rising Waters
In September 2025, CIReN made its initial request by email to the Water Development Department (WDD), requesting a list of the companies or licensees that hold water extraction licenses from the department for commercial purposes, as well as the amounts extracted by each for the year 2024.
In February 2026, after repeated unsuccessful follow-ups with the WDD, CIReN submitted another official request to the department, asking for a separate list of companies or licensees with the largest levels of extraction in the years 2020 to 2025, the field they operate in, actual extraction levels, and how much they are licensed to extract. The list of those that maintain such licenses for commercial farming operations was also requested.
Later that month, the WDD responded to CIReN’s requests for the first time by email, stating that they had received the request and would provide a response shortly.
Two months later in April, the Department provided CIReN with aggregated lists showing data such as extraction limits, water-use purpose, and general location, but without the names of the companies or licensees, or their extraction figures.
The WDD cited personal-data protection and confidentiality of commercial information as reasons for withholding the requested information.
With its central argument being that large-scale extraction of a public natural resource – particularly in a country facing water scarcity – should be subject to public scrutiny especially when the extraction is licensed and regulated by the state, CIReN, in May, filed an official Freedom of Information (FOIA) request to the WDD.
The request was for information on the companies and licensees that hold water extraction licenses between 10,000 and 20,000 cubic meters annually; between 20,000 to 30,000 cubic meters annually; and above 30,000 cubic meters annually. Among the information requested was the water-use purpose, their extraction limit, and their actual extraction figures for the previous three years.
CIReN’s request made clear why access to such information is important public information with a clear public benefit; and why the data should not be withheld for reasons of commercial confidentiality.
Faced with these obstacles in securing the requested data from the WDD, CIReN reporters escalated the issue in July, by lodging a complaint with Cyprus’ Information Commissioner detailing the long delays in receiving a response and the failure to get the relevant information.
The complaint also included our argument that such data should be public as the extraction of large amounts of water for commercial purposes is a significant use of a scarce public resource that requires accountability.
At the time of publication of this article, CIReN had only received a notice from the office of the Information Commissioner acknowledging the receipt of the complaint and mentioning that it is under review with inquiries to the WDD ongoing.
Portugal takes a similar stance
Our media partners in Portugal faced similar challenges as CIReN, with local authorities not replying to initial requests. After a formal request was submitted, the authorities provided varying responses.
Some, as in Cyprus, cited the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and commercial confidentiality, while others implied they may have entered into agreements including confidentiality clauses with the licensees.
Frustrated by the responses, the reporters filed complaints to the Commission for Access to Administrative Data (CADA) for each of their ten initial requests. After analysing the requests, CADA issued favourable opinions to the journalists in nine out of ten cases.
While these opinions are produced by legal experts and experts in the field, they are not by themselves legally binding. Of the entities that received the initial requests, all but one chose to ignore CADA’s issued opinion.
Faced with no other option but to open a legal case but limited funding to do so, our Portuguese media partner launched a crowdfunding campaign. With an initially targeted EUR 2,500 to cover the legal costs, they were able to raise EUR 2,800 within a few short weeks, and launch legal proceedings for the disclosure of the information.
Malta takes a different approach
While Cyprus and Portugal withheld the identities of major users, in Malta, similar investigative requests led to the obtaining of detailed water-user data. Our media partners in Malta requested and successfully received from the relevant authorities information on the main water extractors and the amounts each drew from the ground with only partial redactions in the data. Based on the data made available to them, reporters produced the stories: Profit In Every Drop: The Major Industries and 227 Million Litres For Free: Polidano Companies Top Malta’s Groundwater Users
Our previous reporting as part of the same project illustrated how there are serious shortcomings in the oversight of groundwater abstraction in Cyprus, and how wastewater treatment provided one of few notable examples of successful collaboration across Cyprus’ divide with more collaborations like these being vital to face common issues like drought and environmental degradation.
This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
