PM Mitsotakis at the MED9 Summit in Cyprus; to reiterate the importance of guarding the EU external borders
Under the shadow of the latest developments in the Middle East and the widespread concern for further escalation in the wider region after Iran’s attacks against Israel, the Summit of Mediterranean Member States of the European Union (MED9) will be held on Friday in Cyprus, with the participation of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Commission: Implementation of Greece’s recovery and resilience plan progresses smoothly
The European Commission highlighted in its annual report that the implementation of Greece’s recovery and resilience plan is progressing smoothly, though “increased efforts” are needed for timely execution.
Kasselakis says he won’t pursue legal action against SYRIZA over wealth declaration leak
Former SYRIZA president Stefanos Kasselakis on Thursday said that he will not pursue legal action against the leftist opposition party over the alleged leak of his wealth declaration to the press. His comments to the press came after a meeting at party headquarters in Athens, with MP Pavlos Polakis, one of his rivals in the upcoming election for a new leader.
Energy Ministry: New hours for the reduced-rate electricity tariff
The government is introducing incentives aiming to transfer electricity demand to daytime hours and weekends, when prices on the Energy Exchange are lowest due to supply from solar, Environment and Energy Minister Theodoros Skylakakis announced.
ATHEX: Another day of losses for the bourse
The Greek stock market completed nine sessions of benchmark losses out of the last 10 on Thursday, with little fresh money coming in and the market being eager once again for some tangible developments such as business deals that have not already been priced in. This is contrary to the general mood in other markets in the eurozone and across the Atlantic, where record highs are being registered.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1250656/athex-another-day-of-losses-for-the-bourse
KATHIMERINI: Erdogan visits Tirana bearing gifts
TA NEA: New constructions regulation: Six keys to new heights
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: NHS relies on the “kindness of strangers”
RIZOSPASTIS: General strike on November 20
KONTRA NEWS: FinMin Hatzidakis says “forget about retroactive payments“
DIMOKRATIA: Positive step for military schools
NAFTEMPORIKI: Investment gap remains unbridgeable
DRIVING THE DAY: LOCAL ELECTIONS
BRUSSELS BUBBLERS GO TO THE POLLS: On Sunday the supranational collides with the hyper-local as Belgium holds its once-every-six-years municipal elections, including in the 19 communes that make up the capital.
Interest up: Voting is mandatory for Belgians but more non-citizens than ever before (over 50,000) have registered to vote in the Brussels region, a sign perhaps that outsiders who’ve made this city their home are becoming more interested in what’s happening here.
Who cares? “Whether you recognize it or not, you’re part of the city,” argued Tom Moylan, a former EU civil servant who spearheads an initiative called Restless Brussels to bring expats and Belgian natives closer. “The decisions that are taken in the city are going to affect you, whether about mobility, cleanliness, housing or security,” he said.
On your bikes: Whether it’s the strong emotions provoked by the Brussels capital region’s mobility plan “Good Move,” attempts to make the misery-inducing Schuman area more liveable or having your bicycle removed by police because there was a European Council happening (OK, that one was personal) … it takes effort to avoid local politics in this town.
Nonetheless, some manage it. Plenty of Eurocrats who don’t need to pay Belgian taxes live a blissful existence in leafy communes like Woluwe-Saint Lambert, glide to work in the EU bubble in a car, ensconce their kids in European schools, and eat only in the Commission’s well-stocked canteen or European Quarter lunch spots crammed with fellow blue-lanyard wearers. That’s not to mention the hundreds of MEPs who barely live in Brussels and treat the city as a glorified WeWork.
Integration in action: Shedloads of non-Belgians who spend their days working in the European institutions are countering those perceptions and standing to be local councilors in this election, Playbook found, and often in those communes where expats (or immigrants) are a sizeable proportion of the population — like Ixelles, Etterbeek or St. Gilles. (Only Belgians can be mayors, though.)
Louise Decourcelle, a French assistant in the European Parliament who is running in St. Gilles for the liberal French-speaking Reformist Movement (MR), said:“The Eurocrats, as they say, in St Gilles or Ixelles, we are a bit perceived as disconnected or those who raise the property prices, so it’s good to get involved.” When she hears that argument on the doorstep, she counters by saying low housing supply is the problem, not the Eurocrats.
Anja Solovieva, a Belgo-Russian who used to work in the European Parliament and is now running on the Socialists’ list in Etterbeek, said there was a “perceived injustice” in the fact that EU civil servants are exempt from national taxation. “That’s kind of a huge divide and kind of a socialist issue,” she said — though she hasn’t heard it raised on the doorstep.
Benedetta De Marte, the Italian secretary-general of the European Green Party, is a prime example of the EU-local crossover. Few can claim to have been more involved in the June European election than she was — and now she’s running to keep her place as a councilor in the City of Brussels commune. “I think there is a very deep connection between a lot of the internationals in Brussels and the place that they live, but there is very often a disconnection with the politics.” She wants to create a deputy mayor for international and European affairs.
Good news story? “The European institutions are now much better neighbors than they used to be,” said Bryn Watkins, who works for a part of the Brussels regional government that liaises with the European institutions. He described efforts to balance the security demands of EU institutions, like the Commission, with efforts to boost accessibility for locals.
Bubble is broken: “I think it’s a porous divide, people drift back and forth between it and I think increasingly so,” said Moylan. “The days where the kind of EU bubble in Brussels considered itself separate have come to an end.”
HOW TO VOTE …
If you’re not Belgian and haven’t registered: It’s too late.
If you’re Belgian, or if you’re a non-citizen but have registered: There’s no online voting, so you’ll have to cast your ballot in person at a polling place in your municipality. All polling stations open at 8 a.m. Details are listed on invitation letters that Belgians and those registered should have received in advance. Make sure to bring it with you, along with an ID when you head out to vote.
VOTING IS ONE THING, GOVERNING ANOTHER: As explained in this week’s Living Cities newsletter, Brussels voted in a regional parliament in June but doesn’t have a government yet. Belgium held its federal election in June but still also doesn’t have a government. The EU held an election on the same day but still hasn’t elected its executive. Meanwhile, everyone is waiting for the U.S. election on Nov. 5.
MIGRATION
TURKEY’S EU-FUNDED DEPORTATION MACHINE: The EU has spent close to €1 billion on border infrastructure and migration control in Turkey to reduce asylum-seeker arrivals. A months-long investigation by POLITICO and eight other news outlets, coordinated by Lighthouse Reports, found that Turkey is now using this EU-funded infrastructure to forcibly deport Syrians and Afghans in violation of international law — and that the European Commission has been ignoring warnings about the abuses it’s helping fund. Read the full story by Zia Weise and others here.
ORWELLIAN JARGON LATEST: Over lunch in Luxembourg Thursday, the EU’s interior ministers agreed to come up with “innovative ideas” for deporting migrants.
What no one wants to say (yet): That could include so-called return hubs (deportation camps outside the EU) — but Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said talk of this was akin to making a “big thing [from] a small thing,” adding that no one has formally proposed this.
Pintéresque: “We would like to involve third countries in order to reduce illicit migration into the EU,” said Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér. “In many cases, criminality is related to these illegal people,” he added. “Irregular arrivals” into the EU, to use Johansson’s terminology, are down 40 percent this year, she said at a press conference, while deportations are up 18 percent — “but more needs to be done.”
Two eyes on that legacy: Johansson posted a video of the “standing ovation [and] generous words” she received. What about all the borders springing up in the Schengen zone as she leaves? “They were then when I started five years ago,” she said.
NEW COMMISSIONERS
GRILLING? MORE LIKE A LIGHT TOASTING: MEPs from the larger political groups on Thursday gave the green light to the 23 remaining commissioners they were checking for potential conflicts of interests, apparently with all the rigor of this meme.
Conflict of disinterest: “Everything had already been agreed in advance following negotiations between the major groups,” said Manon Aubry, a French MEP who co-chairs the Left group. She said the vetting process for examining potential conflicts of interest of wannabe commissioners “has been a farce from start to finish.” Her MEPs and the Greens walked out of the legal affairs committee meeting Thursday in protest.
Scoop! Max Griera and Elisa Braun got 13 commissioners’ correspondence with the legal affairs committee before the meeting, in this stonker of a scoop.
Next up: The future commissioners must reply to written questions from MEPs by Oct. 22. Luckily they have the EU’s 30,000 civil service to help them if they get stuck.
FINAL TIMETABLE FOR COMMISSIONER HEARINGS: Click here. Politics behind how this got decided — here.
PERSONNEL FILES
METSOLA ALLY TIPPED FOR BIG GIG: The word around Parliament is that senior Spanish official Leticia Zuleta de Reales Ansaldo, who was until recently the head of Cabinet to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, is in the running to lead one of the four new “budgetary neutral” directorates being magicked up for the new year.
The civil servant only took up a role as a director (one step below director general) in June, and was replaced as Cabinet chief by Matthew Tabone, Metsola’s longtime parliamentary collaborator and brother-in-law, in the summer.
EPP stacks the deck: The move would mean the EPP dominates three of the four new top administrative positions in Parliament, with EPP-linked official Michael Speiser and Agnieszka Walter-Drop (who was congratulated by none other than EPP’s Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski) also being named. Monika Strasser — tipped to lead the budgetary affairs DG — is regarded as linked to the Socialists.
Mea culpa: Thursday’s Playbook wrongly identified the new DG Walter-Drop will lead — she will head the new DG for structural and cohesion policies from next year.
SMALL EUROPE, BIG PATRIOTS: The Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament unveiled a new blue logo. The previous one was purple.
ANTI-MONEY-LAUNDERING RACE: The race to head the EU’s new anti-money-laundering authority is down to three candidates: Italy’s Bruna Szego, Germany’s Marcus Pleyer, and the Netherlands’ Jan Reinder De Carpentier, my colleagues Kathryn Carlson and Gregorio Sorgi report.
More parliamentary hearings: MEPs will hold closed-door hearings with the three candidates and a public one with their top choice. (That’ll happen after the incoming European commissioners have been through the wringer.) After that, EU countries will have to approve the appointment.
POKING BEIJING IN THE EYE
UNUSUAL VIP: Taiwanese ex-President Tsai Ing-wen — one of Beijing’s top nemeses — is set to visit Brussels next week, the first time a former Taiwanese leader has ever traveled to the EU capital, Stuart Lau writes in to report.
Seeing friends: The “visit to Belgium is aimed at wide interaction with Taiwan-friendly lawmakers and think tank scholars and experts, in order to continue to push for a substantive friendly relationship between Taiwan and Europe,” the Taipei Representative Office in the EU and Belgium told Stuart Thursday.
Europe tour: It’s unclear whether Tsai will meet any senior EU officials. The trip to Brussels follows a stop in Prague, where she’ll speak at the Forum 2000 conference. Taiwanese media also reported that Tsai will visit France. Here’s Stuart’s write-up.
ZELENSKYY AND PUTIN VISIT THEIR ALLIES
WHAT ZELENSKYY WANTS VS. WHAT HE’LL GET: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is wrapping up his 36-hour tour of European capitals today with a stop in Berlin to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Here are Zelenskyy’s five asks — and the odds he’ll get them.
World Bank creates Ukraine fund: The World Bank’s executive board on Thursday greenlit a Ukraine support fund, with contributions expected from the U.S., Canada and Japan, Reuters reports. The World Bank-administered cash pot will help fulfill the G7’s pledge to provide Ukraine with up to $50 billion in additional funding by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, back in Kyiv … the Ukrainian parliament backed a major tax increase on Thursday, as the country struggles to shore up its budget deficit amid Russia’s invasion. More from the Kyiv Independent.
LOOK WHO’S IN TURKMENISTAN: Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin meets his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in Turkmenistan today. In theory, they’re in Ashgabat to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Turkmen philosophical poet Magtymguly Pyragy, but in practice it’s all about the sideline bilats.
Tehran and Moscow, bosom buddies: Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin held talks with Pezeshkian in Iran last week, and the Iranian president is planning to travel to Russia later this month for the BRICS summit.
Speaking of Iran: Tehran is threatening via diplomatic backchannels to target U.S. allies in the Middle East if their territories or airspace are used for an attack on Iran, Arab officials have told the Wall Street Journal. The FT, meanwhile, has a long-read on how the Gaza cease-fire talks unravelled.
NOW READ THIS: Wars are won with code, says this German military AI maker.
IN OTHER NEWS
VDL TO MEET CDU LEADER: On Sunday, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen travels to Berlin to meet Friedrich Merz, the head of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union. The two conservatives will discuss EU politics at a one-on-one dinner, reports Hans von der Burchard. Von der Leyen is in town for the 10th anniversary of the Berlin Process on Monday, a platform launched to bring the Western Balkans closer to the EU.
ICYMI — FRENCH BUDGET: France’s government on Thursday unveiled harsh budget cuts aimed at bringing down the country’s spiraling deficit, while promising to spare the middle class. It’s the death of Macronomics, writes Giorgio Leali.
LISTEN — AND BUCKLE — UP: On this week’s EU Confidential podcast, we’re talking cars — and the looming trade war with China. Plus, there’s an inside look at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s dramatic confrontation with EU lawmakers in Strasbourg. Listen and subscribe here. Meanwhile, the Westminster Insider podcast hears from some of the U.K.’s most prominent religious MPs.
And on this week’s Declassified humor column … Paul Dallison asks readers to forgive our politicians for desperately courting Taylor Swift.
AGENDA