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EU Approves €152 Million Payment To Cyprus Under Recovery And Resilience Facility

The European Union has approved a payment of €152 million to Cyprus as part of its Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), marking another milestone in the island nation’s post-pandemic recovery efforts. The payment, confirmed by the European Commission, is part of a broader package designed to support Cyprus in implementing reforms and investments that align with the country’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), particularly targeting green and digital transformations.

This payment is the third disbursement from the RRF to Cyprus, bringing the total amount received to €484 million, almost half of the €1 billion allocated to Cyprus under the EU’s NextGenerationEU recovery instrument. The financial injection will further boost Cyprus’ efforts to tackle the socioeconomic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, improve infrastructure, and support the energy transition.

Economic and Structural Reforms

Cyprus’ RRP, which has been in place since 2021, is centred on key reforms to stimulate economic growth, enhance competitiveness, and ensure the nation’s long-term resilience. The reforms target critical sectors, including renewable energy, digital infrastructure, and the modernisation of the public administration system.

The latest tranche of funding from the EU underpins the government’s commitment to an energy transition, with specific investments in renewable energy projects, such as photovoltaic installations, energy storage, and smart grid technologies. The RRP also seeks to accelerate the digitisation of public services, a critical area for modernising Cyprus’ economy and enhancing efficiency.

Moreover, the payment is expected to fuel the green transition through investments in sustainable agriculture and energy efficiency projects. These initiatives are aligned with the EU’s overarching goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

A Broader Context of Recovery

The approval of this payment not only highlights Cyprus’ successful management of the RRF but also signals broader confidence in the country’s recovery trajectory. With its economy heavily reliant on tourism and services, Cyprus was hit hard by the pandemic. However, the RRF, combined with national efforts, has provided a critical lifeline, allowing the government to fund projects aimed at boosting economic resilience.

This latest EU approval underscores the pivotal role the RRF plays in driving forward economic reforms that promise not only short-term recovery but also long-term sustainable growth for Cyprus.

Cloudflare Sets New Default To Separate Search Crawlers From AI Bots

Cloudflare has drawn a sharper line between traditional search and artificial intelligence.

Beginning September 15, 2026, the company will change its default settings to block so-called mixed-use crawlers from pages that run ads, unless a site owner chooses otherwise. The policy applies to new Cloudflare customers, new sites created by existing customers, and all current free customers.

A Clearer Divide In Web Access

The shift could materially reshape how AI companies collect web data for model training and agentic products. Cloudflare’s central argument is straightforward: most publishers want their content to remain visible in search and accessible through certain AI services, but they do not want that same material repurposed without compensation.

In Cloudflare’s view, the problem is not crawling itself. It is the blending of three different functions: search, agentic use, and training into a single bot that makes it difficult for website owners to set meaningful boundaries.

The Google Question

Cloudflare pointedly referenced the “world’s largest search engine,” an unmistakable nod to Google, arguing that it has access to roughly twice as much information as rival AI companies because it makes it harder for customers to stay discoverable without also being used for AI.

Google has disputed that framing. The company offers Google Extended, a crawler setting that lets publishers opt out of having content used for training and AI products such as Gemini apps and Vertex AI, without affecting visibility in Google Search. At the same time, Googlebot still crawls for Search and for AI-powered features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Publishers Want Reach, Not Exploitation

Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s co-founder and chief executive, said the company is moving quickly because the internet is now dominated by machine traffic.

“Now that the majority of traffic on the Internet is non-human, we must go further and act faster so that a sustainable ecosystem can emerge,” Prince said, referring to the recent milestone in which bots surpassed human traffic online sooner than expected.

Prince added that Cloudflare’s tools and partnerships are designed to give publishers more visibility and commercial leverage, while also rewarding AI companies that are transparent about how they use content.

From Pay Per Crawl To Pay Per Use

Cloudflare has increasingly positioned itself as a gatekeeper for publishers looking to assert control in the AI era. The company already offers tools to block AI bots, along with a marketplace called Pay Per Crawl, which lets websites charge AI systems for scraping.

That framework is now expanding into Pay Per Use, which Cloudflare says will allow publishers to charge AI companies when content creates value, not merely when it is fetched. In practical terms, that shifts the economics from extraction to monetization.

Cloudflare says the move may also reduce waste. Its data suggests more than half of crawl traffic from AI bots is spent revisiting pages that have not changed, consuming bandwidth and compute without adding fresh value for either side.

Early Partners Signal The Commercial Model

To launch the new system, Cloudflare is working with Ceramic.ai and You.com. Under the opt-in model, publishers can be paid when their content appears in Ceramic’s AI search results or when You.com accesses premium material.

Cloudflare says other AI companies can adapt the model to fit their own products. The broader message is clear: the era of unrestricted crawling is giving way to one in which access, attribution, and compensation are increasingly negotiated rather than assumed.

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