More questions emerge after Chios sea tragedy
Questions are mounting over events Tuesday night off the island of Chios that resulted in the deaths of 15 Afghan migrants, as investigations seek to determine how the tragedy occurred and whether it could have been prevented.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1294397/more-questions-emerge-after-chios-sea-tragedy
Greece open to Turkey cooperation if it follows maritime law
Greece and Israel are responding to shared regional challenges but are not seeking to exclude Turkey, Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said Tuesday at a panel hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) during the Delphi Economic Forum Washington DC VII. Dendias stressed that Turkey could join trilateral efforts if it respects international maritime law, specifically the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Hatzidakis presents bill for a more citizen-friendly state
“Let’s put an end to a logic that belongs in stories of everyday madness,” emphasized Deputy Prime Minister Kostis Hatzidakis during Wednesday’s presentation of the draft law “Interventions for a More Citizen-Friendly State,” which mainly aims to reduce the burdens citizens face in their interactions with the public sector.
https://www.amna.gr/en/article/967845/Hatzidakis-presents-bill-for-a-more-citizen-friendly-state
Mitsotakis at the ‘The Greek AI Accelerator’ event: Greece is a leader and not a laggard in AI
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday urged people involved in Artificial Intelligence and innovation startups to come forward with their ideas and explain how the government can help them, adding that the more visible progress is made, the more other young people will be attracted to follow their example.
ATHEX: Bourse index accelerates its growth
The Greek bourse benchmark has climbed to the 2,400-point level with another show of force by buyers at Athinon Avenue on Wednesday, in what is shaping up as the best week of the year so far. Such was the momentum that the index closed the session on the day’s highest point. It is not only the highs unseen since December 2009, but also the constantly high volume of turnover that fuel optimism for more growth to come in the course of the year at the local stock market, unlike 2027 that will be an election year.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1294403/athex-bourse-index-accelerates-its-growth
KATHIMERINI: American demands for Greece and NATO
TA NEA: Chios deadly incident: The “black box” of the new tragedy
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: The deterrence dogma [regarding migration] is lethal
RIZOSPASTIS: Criminal policy by the Greek government and the EU against refugees and migrants
KONTRA NEWS: Foreign Minister Gerapetritis refuses to leave the ministry blocking a potential government reshuffle
DIMOKRATIA: 300,000 entitled individuals are receiving reduced widower’s pensions
NAFTEMPORIKI: Government package shuts the door on bureaucracy
DRIVING THE DAY
EYES ON THE MFF PRIZE: There’s been plenty to suck up the oxygen of the EU executive in recent times: the shelved Greenland takeover, trade deals sealed whenever/wherever and the drive for competitiveness ahead of next week’s leaders’ retreat. Yet the mother of all policy battles is back in a cinema near you: the bloc’s long-term budget.
Let’s talk money: The action kicks off at 9:30 a.m. with the first real debate among political groups in Parliament’s budget committee on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), covering 2028–2034.
Parliament’s unyielding red lines: A 10 percent increase on the Commission’s proposal, paired with a €60 billion own-resources package — potentially including a digital levy. “New ambitions require new resources — not reshuffling or renationalizing EU policies,” one of the two lead rapporteurs on the file, European People’s Party (EPP) lawmaker Siegfried Mureșan, told Playbook.
Ready for a dustup: “There is not a single article from the Commission’s proposal that will be left untouched,” Andrey Novakov, another EPP lawmaker involved in shaping the Parliament’s position, told reporters. Fellow negotiator Pascal Arimont, also from the EPP, was more direct: “The real battle won’t be inside Parliament … it will be between Parliament and Council.”
A whopping 996: That’s the number of amendments already filed at committee level. The immediate goals are a first screening to map common ground and the drafting of joint compromise amendments among those groups willing to play ball.
To do that, you need a majority. For now, the pro-European bloc that backed Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s reappointment — the EPP, Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Renew Europe and the Greens — remains in place. Still, Parliament has repeatedly formed alternative majorities in recent months, including with the right and even the far right.
The survival of the loose coalition is shaping up as the key test of the von der Leyen Commission’s authority.
The missteps: Despite batting away every motion of censure, von der Leyen has also made blunders in the Parliament. For example: the EU-U.S. deal (that remains frozen) and the referral to the EU Court of the Mercosur agreement that now risks slowing down the process dramatically.
Executive’s blind spot? One Commission official told me Parliament is seen as von der Leyen’s Achilles’ heel, pointing to the absence of a dedicated parliamentary adviser in her cabinet. But von der Leyen’s cabinet pushed back on that, telling Playbook that all members of staff were on point to deal with the legislature. There may not be a single designated adviser, but several cabinet members handle parliamentary relations as part of their broader portfolios, they said.
BUDGET TALKS ALL DAY: Still on money … this afternoon, MEPs will debate the impact on the current MFF of the €90 billion Ukraine loan agreed by Council Wednesday. But the discussion may be largely symbolic, according to POLITICO’s Gregorio Sorgi.
Don’t call it a trilogue: The real action is set to come in an informal meeting between Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin, Committee on Budgets Chair Johan Van Overtveldt and Cyprus’ EU ambassador Christina Rafti, aimed at clearing the air and securing Parliament’s green light.
What’s at stake: With EU ambassadors having sealed the loan deal on Wednesday, Parliament’s approval is the last hurdle before Ukraine gets the money it so urgently needs. Member countries plan to tap unused funds from the current seven-year budget to cover borrowing costs — roughly €3 billion a year after 2028. If that’s not enough, national budgets will step in.
Why MEPs are uneasy (and why it may not matter): The setup has angered Parliament, which is instinctively hostile to budget reshuffling. But the lawmakers’ leverage is limited: MEPs can only approve or reject a Council deal, not amend it. And with Ukraine potentially running out of money by early April, the burden of voting “no” would be a heavy one.
SLOVENIA’S POLITICAL PLOT
MEET ME IN LJUBLJANA: What are the leaders of Parliament’s main political groups — and even a couple of commissioners — all doing in Slovenia on the same day? Playing politics, of course. Manfred Weber, Iratxe García Pérez and Valérie Hayer, along with heads of national delegations, are in town, with Commissioners Raffaele Fitto and Andrius Kubilius also appearing on institutional visits.
Seriously, though: Slovenia goes the polls on March 22 and Prime Minister Robert Golob’s center-left coalition is under pressure from the opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), an EPP affiliate led by Janez Janša. Recent polls suggest the SDS is slightly ahead of Golob’s party.
The breakfast that wasn’t: Two group officials told Playbook that Golob formally invited the leaders of the so-called platform — the von der Leyen majority in the European Parliament — for a Thursday breakfast meeting. But that’s now off, after only two of the three group leaders replied in time.
Why Weber said no: “I’m not visiting Ljubljana to support Robert Golob. I’m here because Janez Janša is the strong voice for Slovenia in Europe,” EPP leader Weber told Playbook Wednesday evening.
The EPP delegation’s agenda includes meetings with Commissioners Fitto and Kubilius, as well as with Janša, plus internal discussions on the party’s 2026 strategy, an EPP official said. European conservatives are also pushing to strengthen the group’s internal coordination, POLITICO’s Zoya Sheftalovich and Nicholas Vinocur write.
Speaking of Janša,Playbook has learned from a socialist official that García Pérez, the S&D leader, will today present a group declaration calling on the EPP to expel Janša’s SDS over its “anti-rule-of-law path.” The declaration read by Playbook argues that “the close political ties between the EPP, including its leadership” and Janša “raise serious questions about political accountability and responsibility.”
Beyond the brawl: Renew’s Valérie Hayer is on a 24-hour visit — “not even formally a mission,” a Renew official insisted — to meet a handful of ministers and MPs. The Socialists, meanwhile, have been in Slovenia all week.
MEANWHILE, IN BRUSSELS: The tensions in von der Leyen’s majority were also on display at yesterday’s Conference of Presidents setting next week’s plenary agenda. Sparks flew over a debate on “Spain’s large-scale regularization policy [for half a million undocumented migrants] and its impact on the Schengen area and EU migration policy.” The proposal, pushed by the EPP, passed with the support of the far right. An attempt to soften the title was backed by Renew, the Greens and the Left — and failed.
Plenary watch: Other potentially explosive debates next week that were agreed Wednesday include the presence of agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Winter Olympics in Italy and extreme weather events. Votes on migration packages and safeguards for the EU-Mercosur deal will be scheduled for Tuesday.
RETREAT PREP
URSULA (AND ANTÓNIO) IN PARIS: The EU’s best traveled duo — European Council President António Costa and von der Leyen — announced another short-notice trip on Wednesday evening. They’re in Paris today to meet (sans sunglasses) French President Emmanuel Macron.
What’s on the agenda: Costa arrives first at the Élysée Palace, at 8:30 a.m., with von der Leyen joining at 11 a.m. Officially, the meeting is about preparing for the EU leaders’ retreat on Feb. 12, which will focus on competitiveness, and exchanging views on broader “European sovereignty” priorities — from Ukraine to security and defense, according to notes from the French government and the Commission.
Been there before: Von der Leyen made a similar trip to Paris in mid-October, ahead of the EU summit, with Costa dialing in from Brussels.
Nothing to see: Von der Leyen’s team stuck closely to the public readout when speaking to Playbook. Costa’s camp was a touch more expansive, saying the president has been calling — and meeting — most EU leaders this week to prepare for the retreat. “The idea is to talk to most of them before that,” said Costa’s spokesperson.
Something in the air: The French team’s words were more revealing. A source close to the French president told my colleague Clea Caulcutt that Macron wants to “make waves” at the retreat by putting forward several proposals. “He wants to turn it into a real moment,” the source said.
Macron’s fixation: After the Greenland episode, the source added, Macron is determined to push his long-standing agenda of Europe as a power — with a capital-markets union and competitiveness at its core. His concern: that once the immediate pressure of a crisis fades, Europe’s political will fades with it.
SPEAKING OF COMPETITIVENESS: How did the Commission’s internal seminar in Leuven go on Wednesday ? “Well,” according to a Commission official who followed the discussions. “It was an overview of anything that has been done [on competitiveness] and on prioritizing what needs to be done.”
What’s coming: Expect the Commission to feed something concrete into the competitiveness debate ahead of the informal retreat, drawing on the seminar’s conclusions. The takeaway from the Leuven winter camp: Member states may matter, but when you chart policy responsibilities, it’s the Commission that sits at the center of almost everything branded competitiveness.
And the therapy session? If optics are anything to go by, it worked. Von der Leyen and EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas were spotted laughing — or at the very least, smiling — together. Behind closed doors, the late-day discussion on working methods focused on “empowering commissioners to validate their files more efficiently,” according to an official. My translation from Berlaymont-speak is that commissioners want more say in their relations with the executive vice presidents tasked with pushing forward their dossiers.
PRESIDENCY POLITICS
THE TALK OF TOWN: Weber may have already moved on from the lightbulb moment that led him to float the idea of merging the presidencies of the European Commission and the European Council. Playbook asked whether it came up at the EPP group meeting on Wednesday and turns out it didn’t. But in Brussels (and beyond), the debate is still very much alive.
One president’s take: I was at a reception on Wednesday marking the first 100 days of Séamus Boland — one of the EU’s five institutional presidents, who heads the European Economic and Social Committee. Boland, who has already clocked meetings with both the Commission and Council presidents, was unimpressed. “My first reaction was that it’s too simplistic and I don’t agree,” he said.
Checks and balances: Boland’s concern isn’t about legal nitpicking — it’s about political power. Merging the roles would concentrate too much authority in one unelected figure. “If you want an elected president, that’s a completely different debate,” he said. “But right now, it would simply concentrate power.”
The Kissinger question: A related — but more personal — angle came up in a conversation that my Berlin colleague Oliver Noyan had this week with Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar. And while the old question of “who to call if you want to call Europe” remains unresolved, there’s one thing the president is sure of: Ursula von der Leyen’s number is the one you want on speed dial.
Not in her remit: “To be brutally honest, I respect Ursula von der Leyen, but she has no competence in international politics — only economic ones,” Pirc Musar said.
Who else you gonna call? The president pointed instead to the European Council. “We often forget that the European Council should be the strongest body,” she said. And by that logic, she said, Council President Costa, “should be the main figure. But he is not.”
IN OTHER NEWS
OPPOSITION MOUNTS TO AVIATION DEAL: The turbulence around the EU-Qatar air transport agreement hasn’t cleared, a week after the Commission fired Henrik Hololei, the former senior official who negotiated the deal while accepting free flights (and, allegedly, other gifts) from Doha.
Europe’s flag carriers, transport unions and pilots are finalizing a joint document urging the Commission, Parliament and member states to suspend the agreement in the wake of Hololei’s departure from the Berlaymont, POLITICO’s Tommaso Lecca found out.
D-DAY FOR WANNABE EUROCRATS: The AD5 graduates’ competition is published today (as flagged in Tuesday’s Playbook). Don’t get too excited just yet: What’s being released is the official notice of competition and the opening of applications, an European Personnel Selection Office official said. The deadline to apply is March 10 and tests are expected no earlier than three to four months after the deadline. In the meantime, there’s always our quiz to get you warmed up.
HIGHWAY TO A NOBEL: European Parliament President Roberta Metsola meets today with Nadia Murad — the Yazidi human-rights advocate, ISIS survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and winner of Parliament’s top human-rights honor, the Sakharov Prize, in 2018. And that got us thinking …
Worth a flutter: A look at the prize lists shows a striking overlap: Seven Sakharov Prize laureates have later gone on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. When I put the stat to a parliamentary official, the response was dry: “With that kind of overlap, betting firms might start checking the Sakharov shortlist to set Nobel odds.”
Not just for bookmakers: If the Sakharov really boosts Nobel chances, that might interest U.S. President Donald Trump — whose long-standing obsession with the peace prize is well known. So far, no parliamentary group has nominated Trump for the Sakharov. But two far-right groups in Parliament — the Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations — did nominate Elon Musk twice, in 2023 and 2024.
PUIGDEMONT RULING: The EU Court’s verdict on lifting Carles Puigdemont’s parliamentary immunity is scheduled for today. This full judgment follows the EU Advocate General’s September 2025 non-binding opinion supporting the 2021 Parliament decision to waive immunity for Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí over charges relating to the Catalonia independence referendum.