Cyprus preparing path toward NATO
Cyprus would submit an application to join NATO “even tomorrow if it were possible,” President Nikos Christodoulides said in an interview broadcast Thursday, while acknowledging that current political conditions prevent such a move.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/foreign-policy/1297163/cyprus-preparing-path-toward-nato
Athens signals resolve to Ankara
Greece sent a clear message to Ankara on Thursday, saying it alone decides how to deploy and use its armed forces within its territory, after Turkey claimed that the transfer of a long-range Patriot air defense system to the island of Karpathos violated the “demilitarized status” of the Dodecanese.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/foreign-policy/1297160/athens-signals-resolve-to-ankara
Mitsotakis, Meloni and Macron agree to coordinate actions in Cyprus, East Mediterranean
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron have agreed to coordinate their actions regarding the deployment of military assets to Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean, according to diplomatic sources in Paris.
Papastavrou: Chevron energy deals lay foundations for Greece as natural gas producer
Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou, speaking during a parliamentary committee discussion on the ratification of four agreements between Greece and the companies Chevron Greece Holdings and HELLENiQ Upstream for the concession of hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation rights in southern Crete and the southern Peloponnese, said the deals could strengthen Greece’s role in the energy sector.
ATHEX: Volatility is the only certainty
The upward move that Greek stocks attempted on Thursday morning rapidly lost steam and the benchmark had to settle for moderate gains in the end, on reduced turnover, too. The impact of the war was once again clear on refinery stocks that grew on the day (Motor Oil and Helleniq Energy), while travel-related companies (Athens airport and Aegean Air) declined. All this shows that volatility is the only certainty in this context of uncertainty.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1297168/athex-volatility-is-the-only-certainty
KATHIMERINI: Cyprus President Christodoulidis: We want to join NATO
TA NEA: Greece gets the upper hand in the Aegean Sea and Cyprus
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: European experiments in Cyprus
RIZOSPASTIS: Large participation in yesterday’s strike. No sacrifice for shipowners’ bloody profits
KONTRA NEWS: Turkey is sending troops to occupied Cyprus while issuing threats about Karpathos
DIMOKRATIA: Scandal with 68.003.631 euros handed out to UNICEF by the Alternate Minister of Health
NAFTEMPORIKI: Greek government finances branch is preparing a defense plan
DRIVING THE DAY
PASSPORT TO INFLUENCE: While the eyes of the world are on Iran, diplomats in Brussels are hatching plans to get their countries’ brightest talents on the fast track to careers as senior European Union officials — potentially giving their governments influence for decades to come.
Not missing the chance: The super-competitive process, which pits tens of thousands of smart young people against each other for well-paid grade AD5 roles, closes March 10, with online exams likely to be held within months. It’s the first time in seven years that generalist applicants, rather than only specialists in areas such as HR, finance and law, have had a chance to apply for the jobs.
The prize? A stepping stone to someday running parts of the EU machine … with a pay packet of around €6,000 to €7,000 a month.
There’s been no intake since 2019, prompting many countries to complain they are underrepresented inside the bureaucracy, while others, like Italy, are overrepresented. Diplomats from five separate countries told Playbook they’re eyeing the AD5 contest as an opportunity to change that balance. The Netherlands, for example, made up about 2 percent of candidates in the 2019 application process, despite accounting for about 4 percent of the EU’s population, according to the European Commission.
Helping hand: Now the Dutch government is pushing as many people to apply as possible, offering support to its “talent network” that includes free online practice materials and training sessions. Poland has run social media campaigns to raise awareness of the competition at home and even provided a six-hour training session last week, covering how to ace the verbal, abstract and dreaded numerical reasoning tests. Sweden and Ireland are doing similar things for their citizens.
Taking stock(holm): “We have been preparing for almost seven years,” said Asia Riazantceva, coordinator for EU recruitment at the Swedish Council for Higher Education. “Now we have waiting lists for our training sessions and we are booking extra ones … It’s cost-free for Swedish candidates — the Swedish government is paying.
“It’s not only that Swedes are underrepresented, but there are upcoming retirements that are decreasing the number of Swedes at the institutions,” Riazantceva added.
Influence paradox: András Baneth, the author of a book on how to beat the exam, told Playbook his training consultancy is working with several embassies and foreign ministries to help get their candidates in. “It’s this interesting contradiction,” he said. “Formally speaking, civil servants, once they are hired, no longer represent … their home country — they need to be neutral and look at the European interest. But then … why the hell would so many national governments be so keen on helping their countrymen and women to get into these institutions?”
Soft power: “Those informal channels, the perspective, ideas, culture and politics they might bring into the policymaking — [EU countries] consider that an important endeavor,” Baneth said.
Holding up a mirror: A diplomat from an underrepresented EU country told POLITICO that “geographical balance in the EU institutions is about legitimacy. Europe’s policies are stronger when shaped by talent from every corner of the union … citizens will only believe in Europe if they recognize themselves in its institutions.”
Diplomatic standoff: For senior roles like heads of cabinet, directors-general and top Berlaymont positions, some embassies go as far as plotting where their nationals are and ways to slot them into pivotal vacancies. But the increasing focus on the AD5 competition shows capitals are mapping out the path to institutional influence decades in advance.
WORLD AT WAR
ROCKET MAN: EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius is launching a “missile tour” in Poland today to boost European defense production and ensure the rapid rearming of Ukraine. The commissioner told POLITICO that Poland is leading on missile production on the continent — something that feeds Ukraine’s most pressing needs.
Competing theaters: “Ukraine has clear priorities but urgently needs missiles for air defense, especially for antiballistic defense,” Kubilius told Jacopo Barigazzi. “We need a ‘quantum leap’ in our collective defense and ramp-up.” And so the commissioner is touring EU production centers: “I will be meeting industry and governments to discuss and see in practical ways how we can rapidly boost missile production,” he said.
CASH FOR KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters Thursday that he’s reluctant to allow Russian oil to resume flowing through the Druzhba pipeline but will do so if that’s what it takes to unblock the EU’s promised €90 billion lifeline. Hungary has accused Kyiv of slow-walking repairs to the pipeline, a major conduit for Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia that was damaged by a Russian drone in late January.
Zelenskyy and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán again traded threats over the pipeline yesterday, with Orbán saying on social media he’ll “break the Ukrainian oil blockade by force” and Zelenskyy blasting back that Russia is “killing us, and we have to give oil to Orbán because he, poor thing, cannot win the elections” without it.
But Zelenskyy’s grudging concession might provide a way forward: Orbán has said he’ll drop his country’s veto on the loan if Ukraine repairs the Druzhba pipeline, POLITICO’s Veronika Melkozerova writes in from Kyiv.
Patriots protest: The Patriots for Europe, the far-right group in the European Parliament that includes Orbán’s Fidesz party, put out a furious statement last night accusing Zelenskyy of threatening Orbán and saying intimidation has “no place in political discourse.”
NUCLEAR UMBRELLA: Meanwhile, Finland said Thursday it would ease its ban on nuclear weapons being stationed in the country.
MIDDLE EAST WAR: Israel bombarded Tehran and Beirut … Donald Trump urged Kurdish forces in Iraq to attack Iran … and Azerbaijan demanded an official explanation from Tehran for a drone strike on its territory as the conflict in the Middle East widened overnight. Trump told several publications he wants the U.S. to be involved in choosing Iran’s next leader, repeating a line from Thursday’s interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns (in which the president also said, “Cuba’s going to fall, too”).
Trump shrugged off the war’s impact on energy prices, telling Reuters: “I don’t have any concern about it.” But Europe is far from relaxed. EU officials will meet in Brussels on Friday to discuss the threat of soaring energy costs, but the solutions flying around are either politically explosive, unworkable or unlikely to make a quick difference. Elena Giordano and Ben Munster run through the options.
Meanwhile … the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran are becoming a political problem for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who polls suggest stands to lose a national referendum that many see as a confidence vote on her leadership, Hannah Roberts reports from Rome.
PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW
AIRBNB LOBBYING: Ministers are sitting down in Brussels on Monday for an informal debate on the crisis facing the continent’s housing sector. As the bloc weighs in on the issue for the first time with a new strategy to boost affordability, Playbook spoke to Nathan Blecharczyk, an Airbnb founder and the platform’s chief strategy officer, who is in Brussels this week to meet with stakeholders, including the EU’s tourism commissioner.
Blecharczyk hit out at detractors who accuse Airbnb of driving up prices and creating overtourism after a handful of national and municipal governments, in countries including France and Spain, imposed new restrictions on lettings. “The causes of housing and overtourism are much broader than platforms like Airbnb,” he said. “When cities like Barcelona and Amsterdam took drastic action against short-term rentals, they saw rental prices continue to rise, even after the number of listings dropped dramatically.
Watch this space: The charm offensive in Brussels comes as EU housing chief Dan Jørgensen prepares regulation to tackle short-term rentals via online platforms. In a bid to head off tighter rules, the company is publishing a report this morning, seen by Playbook, that insists it “contributed more than €53.2 billion to the EU’s GDP and supported more than 904,000 jobs” in 2025 and offers flexible housing options that people otherwise wouldn’t have.
PARLIAMENT CORNER
RISE AND SHINE: The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) is trying to convince its coalition partners to ratify the EU-U.S. trade deal by proposing a “sunrise clause” — meaning that if certain criteria relating to the deal are not upheld, then the deal does not kick in, the EPP’s lead negotiator Jörgen Warborn told POLITICO.
A deal is a deal: Such a clause would solve “all the concerns the political groups have,” Warborn said, as centrist and left-wing parties push to freeze the agreement over Washington’s tariffs and threats to Spain. The lawmaker said other group negotiators agreed to meet next Wednesday to reassess the deal, with a view to voting it through at a March 17 international committee session. “We believe that a deal is a deal, the EU has to be reliable trading partners.”
SCOOP — DEPORTATIONS DEAL: Right-wing groups on Thursday backed a compromise deal on the new returns regulation designed to ramp up the repatriation of unsuccessful asylum applicants, my colleagues Max Griera and Hanne Cokelaere revealed last night. The deal would give greater flexibility for deportation hubs to be set up in non-EU countries, increase powers to remove people as security risks and prevent the deportation process from being halted if an appeal is filed.
IN OTHER NEWS
A VERY MAGA ELECTION? Viktor Orbán might be trailing in the polls ahead of next month’s Hungarian elections, but U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters are pulling out all the stops to give him a leg up, Jamie Dettmer writes.
A VERY AFD ELECTION: Germany’s far right is surging in the Western German state of Baden-Württemberg, Ferdinand Knapp and Nette Nöstlinger report.
IF LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS: In this week’s Declassified humor column, Paul Dallison looks at the art of sitting there looking like a lemon while your allies are giving you a verbal kicking, as exemplified this week by Friedrich Merz.
IF LIFE GIVES YOU LENTILS: Make a veggie burger. Thanks to a compromise in parliament, meat-free alternatives can still be called burgers and sausages.