PM Mitsotakis congratulates Ursula von der Leyen on her re-election as EU Commission President
“Warmest congratulations to Ursula von der Leyen on her re-election as President of the EU Commission. Her experience and leadership are invaluable in these challenging times. We will continue to work together and build a stronger, more competitive and strategically autonomous Europe,” Mitsotakis said on platform X
Cyberattack on the Hellenic Cadastre
A cyberattack has been attempted on the information systems of the Hellenic Cadastre. According to a statement by Ministry of Digital Governance from the first moment all relevant state bodies, as well as a team of experts, have been mobilized to deal with such crises.
https://www.iefimerida.gr/english/cyberattack-hellenic-cadastre
Ex-deputy PM leaves SYRIZA, criticizes Kasselakis
Yannis Dragasakis, a former deputy prime minister, economy minister, and founding member of SYRIZA, announced on Thursday that he is leaving the main opposition party. The 76-year-old, who resigned from the leftist party’s central committee in December, issued a statement criticizing SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis for distorting the party’s ideological character.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1244285/ex-minister-leaves-syriza-criticizes-kasselakis
Agreement to establish fifth Greek banking pillar
Attica Bank has informed investors that it received written notification from the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) and Thrivest Holding Ltd regarding the signing of a binding agreement. This agreement outlines the corporate transformation of Attica Bank through its merger with Pancreta Bank, where Pancreta will be absorbed by Attica.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1244310/agreement-to-establish-fifth-greek-banking-pillar
ATHEX: Rebound on bourse led by lenders
The Greek stock market rebounded on Thursday, capitalizing on the positive atmosphere of the smooth election of the European Commission leadership and the market-appeasing comments of the European Central Bank head, Christine Lagarde, ahead of a September interest rate cut. Investors are now anticipating the start of the bank result flow in the coming days.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1244320/athex-rebound-on-bourse-led-by-lenders/
KATHIMERINI: Hackers invaded the state cadastre
TA NEA: 4 gifts for Greece from the EU
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: The after-tremors after Dragasakis’ departure from SYRIZA
RIZOSPASTIS: Greek Communist Party amendment proposes substantial measures to protect households from auctions
KONTRA NEWS: New Democracy MPs open “guerilla front” against the party’s leadership
DIMOKRATIA: Turbulence within ruling New Democracy
NAFTEMPORIKI: 3-point space map from Greece
GOOD FRIDAY MORNING from Strasbourg, where you’d be lucky to find enough MEPs left to form a book club, let alone a majority for a crunch vote — even though the Parliament is still in session today. This is Eddy Wax. Nick Vinocur will be with you as usual for Monday’s Playbook.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: Former U.S. President Donald Trump closed the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee by formally accepting the party’s nomination for November’s presidential election. In what was reportedly the longest televised acceptance speech by an American presidential candidate in history, lasting around 90 minutes, Trump somberly recounted the assassination attempt against him on Saturday, thanking God that he survived.
Trump called for unity, saying he wants to be president for all Americans. “We rise together or we fall apart,” he told the crowd. But he then returned to familiar territory, urging the Democrats to drop the criminal charges against him, hammering immigrants and saying of Joe Biden’s presidency: “If you took the 10 worst presidents … added them up, they will not have done the damage that Biden has done.”
Praise for Orbán: Trump gave a shout-out to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who visited him at Mar-a-Lago last week on one of his self-declared “peace missions.” Trump described Orbán as a champion of illiberal democracy and a “very tough man.”
Meanwhile … with Biden’s candidacy in crisis, Trump’s allies are preparing to campaign against another Democrat. My U.S. colleagues have all the details of Trump’s RNC address in our live blog.
VDL’S BIG MOMENT
VON DER LEYEN THREADS THE NEEDLE: With all the agility of an Olympic trapeze artist and the linguistic ambiguity of a … well, a politician … Ursula von der Leyen squeezed into a second five-year term running the European Commission thanks to the support of her own center-right European People’s Party (EPP), along with the Socialists (S&D), liberals and Greens.
Home and dry: In a secret vote that didn’t feel secure until the last couple of days, 401 MEPs voted for her, a solid 41 more than needed, and “much better,” as von der Leyen put it, than she did in 2019. To get there, von der Leyen spent weeks negotiating with MEPs and handed out enough policy trinkets to win support without alienating the opposing green and conservative wings of her coalition.
Tastier than carrots: “Her speech in the morning was like a plate with cookies for almost everybody from the majority,” said liberal MEP Dan Barna, who changed his mind and voted for von der Leyen after getting promises on improving the rule of law in his native Romania during a 40-minute sit down with her.
SATISFIED SOCIALISTS: “She’s the only one in the EPP who still defends the Green Deal,” said French center-left MEP Raphaël Glucksmann as he left the chamber after voting for von der Leyen.
QUEENMAKERS: Some 45 out of 53 Greens voted for von der Leyen. Bas Eickhout, their co-leader, described the Greens as “essential” and claimed they now form a four-party majority that will continue to influence the Commission. But what if the right gangs up together from now on? “I’ve never seen the far right building something,” he told journalists after the vote. “For building, [the EPP] need us.”
She’s our candidate, not yours: “Everyone who has a single vote … would claim that they had 41 votes and that they made her president,” said EPP lawmaker Siegfried Mureșan. “Obviously, the result is such that most votes came from the EPP, then S&D,” he said.
Clean-washing: The Greens were satisfied that, despite the language designed to please the center-right, von der Leyen’s program was sufficiently green at its core, as my colleagues Zia Weise, Leonie Cater and Marianne Gros write in this must-read piece. They analyze how von der Leyen smuggled green policies into her agenda using industry-friendly lingo — as with the rebranding of a strategy to slash industrial emissions as the Clean Industrial Deal.
DID MELONI MESS IT UP? The 24 MEPs from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy voted no to reappointing von der Leyen. One Meloni ally, Nicola Procaccini, the co-leader of the ECR group, argued at a press conference that von der Leyen’s continued support for the Green Deal — and the fact the Greens were so keen — made their support impossible. “We are serious people, moderate but … very decided about our values, our principles,” Procaccini said. He insisted they would retain influence over the Commission and the EPP.
Quid pro fail: “Why would VDL help her now?” asked one EPP lawmaker by WhatsApp. “They will get a Commissioner for olive oil and Vespas.” (That already sounds a bit like the “Commissioner for the Mediterranean” that von der Leyen said she’d create). Asked by Playbook if he’s worried Italy will now get a lesser portfolio, Procaccini said:“Italy is Italy.”
Expert view: “The ECR has handled this opportunity very poorly. Instead of offering a bridge to the right, they have put themselves in the corner,” said Ben Crum, a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam. “I suppose [von der Leyen’s] political instinct told her that the group would be unstable and unlikely to deliver.”
The plan all along? “The result shows that the approach was the right one,” von der Leyen said at a press conference, dodging a question about whether she should have spent so much time courting Meloni. During the election campaign she repeatedly flung her door open to Meloni’s MEPs, who she considered met her criteria — but there was no mention of that now.
Green and bear it: Not everyone had the most enthusiastic arguments for supporting von der Leyen. “We as members don’t really have a choice,” said the Greens’ Nela Riehl. “Is this a green program? … I can tell you: No,” said co-leader Terry Reintke. “I’m not sure if happy is the right word,” said Hannah Neumann.
Dude discount: “You are not perfect, but who is? None of us!” said Assita Kanko, an ECR vice chair, in plenary. “The criticism that Barroso and Juncker received came with a discount,” Kanko told Playbook’s Sarah Wheaton outside the hemicycle, referring to von der Leyen’s predecessors at the helm of the Commission. Women are “over-scrutinized” while “men can make all kinds of mistakes … It disturbs me as a feminist.”
Attention seekers: A Romanian MEP carrying a body bag and wearing a muzzle was thrown out of the chamber after interrupting Valérie Hayer when she was speaking about abortion rights … At the moment the results of the vote on von der Leyen were being announced, anti-LGBTQ+ Lithuanian MEP Petras Gražulis was wandering around filming behind her … Cypriot YouTuber and MEP Fidias Panayiotou filmed himself voting.
Glücksbringer: Von der Leyen wore the same light pink blazer and black trousers as when she was elected in 2019. Why leave anything to chance?
CONGRATS IS THE HARDEST WORD: European Council PresidentCharles Michel finally commented on von der Leyen’s reelection as Commission president six hours after the vote. “Loyal cooperation will be key,” he wrote, pointedly, without saying the word “congratulations.”
NOW READ: My colleagues Nick Vinocur and Barbara Moens have an essential piece out this morning taking a longer view of von der Leyen’s reappointment. Centrist Europe has punched back by returning her to power, they write, but she will have a tough time facing down the populists.
IRONIES THAT SHAPED VDL 2.0
IRONY 1: Most Greens refused to back von der Leyen when she presented their beloved Green Deal five years ago — now, when there’s a much less progressive agenda, they are supporting her.
IRONY 2: Back in Germany, von der Leyen’s Christian Democrats (who are in the opposition) are staunch rivals of the German Greens. In Strasbourg, those Greens voted for her.
IRONY 3: The Socialists are weak at the European Council because they only lead five governments, mostly in fragile coalitions. But in the EU Parliament, they remain strong and have even managed to set the parameters for the negotiations von der Leyen committed to — that she must not negotiate directly with the ECR.
IRONY 4: The ECR group allowed its different national components to vote how they wanted, but in the end, they were almost united in saying no. Only the Belgians and Czechs supported her.
IRONY 5: As POLITICO pointed out earlier this week (and was picked up on in the hemicycle by Procaccini himself ), von der Leyen would not have been reelected without the big losers of the EU election, like the Greens and liberals.
NEXT COMMISSIONERS
EU EYES START DATE FOR NEW COMMISSION: EU officials are looking at November 1 as the ideal starting date for the next College of 27 European commissioners, according to my colleague Barbara Moens.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Von der Leyen will ask national leaders to send two candidates to be commissioners — a man and a woman — she said at a press conference after the vote. The real fight is for portfolios.“Everyone wants an executive vice president or a vice president and everyone wants an economic portfolio,” one senior EU diplomat said.
CVs, please: Von der Leyen will interview the candidates in mid-August, after which they will be grilled by the European Parliament, which tends to take a scalp or two. Barbara Moens has the full story on how the next Commission will take shape here.
PORTFOLIO PROPOSITIONS: Von der Leyen said she’ll create a commissioner for the Mediterranean; a commissioner for fisheries and oceans; a commissioner for defense; a vice president for implementation, simplification and interinstitutional relations; a commissioner whose responsibilities will include affordable housing; and one whose brief will include “intergenerational fairness,” according to her political guidelines. She’ll keep the equality and enlargement commissioners’ roles.
Keep the cohesion! The European Economic and Social Committee has been pressuring the EPP not to reduce the clout of the cohesion commissioner in the next legislative period. “A reduced portfolio … will endanger this crucial role,” EESC President Oliver Röpke wrote in a letter to EPP chief Manfred Weber this month.
OUTTA HERE: Von der Leyen is now taking two days off to spend time with her family. She said she was “tired” in the post-election press conference.
THE UNDERCOVER MEP
INTRODUCING THE UNDERCOVER MEP: An anonymous member of the European Parliament reveals what it’s really like to be an EU lawmaker. Here’s an extract from the first in a series of dispatches …
Since arriving in Brussels and Strasbourg as a new member of the European Parliament this summer, I’ve been to a lot of receptions, shaken a lot of hands and forgotten a lot of names.
Though I’m not a spring chicken, nor a political newbie, I’m fresh to the EU bubble. That means I’m struggling with the lingo. When someone asked me if I wanted to join CULT I got worried. (It turns out it’s the Culture Committee — and the real cult is the Constitutional Affairs Committee, anyway.)
I have noticed how often people were glancing at my stomach, which made me worry I’d put on more weight than I had feared in recent months. Maybe it was the stress of the campaign, I was thinking to myself. That was until a kind colleague pointed out they were merely looking at my dark blue badge, to check if I was indeed an MEP, as nobody recognized me …
IN OTHER NEWS
BOOST FOR MACRON: President Emmanuel Macron’s party formed a last-minute agreement with center-right lawmakers to win a key vote in France’s parliament on Thursday, opening the door to him having a bigger role than expected in forming the country’s next government. The ad-hoc alliance reelected Yaël Braun-Pivet as head of the French National Assembly, in what was seen as a test of who could work together in France’s fractured parliament to name a future prime minister. Victor Goury-Laffont has the details.
New allies heading in different directions: Macron was friendly with fellow centrist Keir Starmer, the U.K.’s new prime minister, at the European Political Community summit this week, but both are now on very different political trajectories, my colleague Emilio Casalicchio writes. Starmer will host President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a meeting of his top ministers on Friday, in a show of support for Ukraine, Reuters reported. The last foreign leader to address a U.K. Cabinet meeting was U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Meanwhile, on the right … Nigel Farage is still the U.K.’s Trump Whisperer.
AND NOW SINCE IT’S FRIDAY … In his Declassified humor column this week, Paul Dallison ponders Donald Trump, JD Vance and the best way to respond to being shot.