Court halts green building bonuses scheme
Greece’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, has dealt a major blow to the New Building Regulation (ΝΟΚ) by ruling that key provisions granting construction “bonuses” for green buildings are unconstitutional.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/environment/1256014/court-halts-green-building-bonuses-scheme
Turkey, Syria focus of party leaders’ briefing
Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis briefed political leaders on Wednesday, one at a time, on escalating developments in Syria and the Middle East, alongside progress in Greek-Turkish relations and Cyprus, as the country readies for its two-year tenure on the United Nations Security Council starting January 1.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1256018/turkey-syria-focus-of-party-leaders-briefing
PM Mitsotakis: Greece aims to play a leading role in the new world of AI
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, speaking on Wednesday at an educational seminar on Artificial Intelligence in the context of Google’s “AI Connect” conference, which was held at the Athens Concert Hall, stressed that “Greece aims to play a leading role in the new world of artificial intelligence”.
FinMin Hatzidakis: Announcements on banking fees expected on Sunday; significant reductions in 2025
The Minister of National Economy and Finance Kostis Hatzidakis, during the first day of the discussion on the state budget for 2025, emphasized that on Sunday announcements will be made regarding the reduction of bank fees.
‘Christmas Basket’ returns with price cuts on holiday essentials
The “Christmas Basket” initiative, ushering in price reductions for six additional categories of basic products needed for the festive season, was launched on Wednesday and will apply up to January 3.
ATHEX: Traders await measures on credit sector
Stocks at Athinon Avenue produced a mixed session on Wednesday as the blue chip and banks indexes lost minimal ground, while the majority of stocks and mid-caps recorded gains, leaving the benchmark virtually unchanged.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1256034/athex-traders-await-measures-on-credit-sector
KATHIMERINI: Council of State blocks “height bonus” for constructions; behold the exceptions
TA NEA: The law regarding heights of constructions was deemed unconstitutional
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: The government’s favors regarding constructions have been “knocked out” by the Council of State
RIZOSPASTIS: Greece must abstain from the imperialistic intervention in Syria and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East
KONTRA NEWS: “Bombing” ruling of the Council of State freezes constructions
DIMOKRATIA: Council of State knocks out the new urban constructions regulation
NAFTEMPORIKI: Bomb at the foundations of the real estate market
DRIVING THE DAY: FUTURE OF UKRAINE
MACRON, TUSK TALK UKRAINE IN TRUMP-WORLD: French President Emmanuel Macron flies to Warsaw this morning to discuss Ukraine with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk — including the possibility of sending foreign peacekeepers into the country after the end of Kyiv’s war with Russia, Playbook’s Nicholas Vinocur reports.
It’s all about Trump-proofing Ukraine: That’s according to an EU diplomat and a French official who spoke to my colleagues (read their story here), explaining how Europe’s leaders are trying to get ready for Donald Trump’s return to the White House and what it could mean for Kyiv.
EUr problem now: If you don’t recall, the idea of Europeans getting “skin in the game” on Ukraine’s security is one that Trump proxies have been pushing for months, with incoming veep JD Vance advocating a Korean-style “demilitarized” zone between Russian and Ukrainian positions if and when hostilities come to an end.
Third rail: The idea of putting EU troops into Ukraine is highly sensitive in many parts of Europe — including in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz has issued a clear “nein” to the prospect. (Scholz has pointedly been left out of Macron’s Warsaw meeting.) But even Poland’s defense minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, slapped down the idea of sending Poles to Ukraine, saying it was “out of the question at this point.”
Not going anywhere: Still, the proposal for a peacekeeping force is proving tenacious. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred to that idea when meeting with Friedrich Merz, who’s on a path to replacing Scholz as Germany’s next chancellor.
ALSO LIKELY TO PLEASE TRUMP: European NATO members are discussing increasing the alliance’s target for defense spending to 3 percent of GDP (up from 2 percent) at the alliance’s annual summit in June, the FT reports this morning.
Speaking Trump’s language: Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said “Europe has to pull its weight” on defense contributions. “It’s unfair that contributions of the United States are still so disproportionately large,” she told a Reuters conference Wednesday.
PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW — UKRAINE DEPUTY PM: Nick spoke with Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European integration, Olha Stefanishyna. He asked her whether Kyiv could accept foreign troops deployed on its soil. “Ukraine is ready to speak about whatever works,” she responded.
Berlin blockers: That reflects an emerging reality for Ukraine: Its push to join NATO isn’t likely to pan out while guns are still blasting on the front line. Stefanishyna took aim at Germany over its red light, saying: “I don’t think there is any justification” for its stance. Pointing out that Berlin hasn’t budged on Ukrainian NATO membership in decades, Stefanishyna added: “It’s really hard to work with a country where there is no reason behind this negative position.”
Trump whispering: When it comes to Washington’s stance, Stefanishyna said it was “hard to discuss [NATO] membership in the last moments of the [Biden] administration” — but sounded hopeful about the White House’s next occupant. “The best way to build a dialogue is simply to meet with President Trump,” she said, underscoring Zelenskyy’s encounters with the Republican in Paris.
Take that, Juncker: Stefanishyna also had a message for officials in Washington and Brussels (ahem, former Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker) who view Ukraine as corrupt and unreformable: Your views are so 2004.
Update your files: “Back when Jean-Claude Juncker was president of the European Commission, Ukraine had only started its effort” to crack down on corruption and strengthen the rule of law. “This is a different country now,” Stefanishyna said, pointing to the fact that Kyiv is about to join the OECD’s anti-corruption task force, and had carried out more rule-of-law reforms in the past decade “than most European countries put together.”
EU accession: Ukraine hopes the Polish Council presidency, which kicks off in January, can accelerate accession talks on a first “cluster” of issues in early 2025, Stefanishyna added. She huddled with top EU envoy Kaja Kallas and Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos in Brussels during her visit.
Don’t sweat the Ukrainian wheat: As for the major fear regarding Ukraine’s accession — that it could flood the EU market with cheap agricultural products — she brushed it off as overblown. “Ukraine already has access to the EU market. It hasn’t been disrupted yet.” In any case, Kyiv’s principal export market was “outside EU countries, not in.”
WHAT’S AT STAKE: Russia could launch its lethal new intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine again “in the coming days,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh warned Wednesday.
EUROPA EXPERIENCE SOURS
SCOOP — KNIVES OUT FOR WHITE ELEPHANTS: A project that aims to show how indispensable the EU is to people’s lives around the Continent is at risk of looking like a giant waste of money itself.The top administrator in the European Parliament, Secretary-General Alessandro Chiocchetti, has ordered a rethink of plans to build EU exhibitions known as the “Europa Experience” in all 27 member countries, which has cost millions and is way behind schedule.
Eu-rip off experience: The exorbitant cost of the project, the brainchild of Chiocchetti’s predecessor Klaus Welle and former MEPs, is laid bare in documents the top official presented to MEPs last month, which Playbook has seen. The plan was to build all 27 exhibition spaces, featuring high-tech cinema and “role-play games” to explain the function of the EU by the end of 2024, modeled on the Parlamentarium in Brussels. But with only 15 Europa Experiences finished, the Parliament is getting cold feet, especially as the annual running costs for each one can go as high as €3 million. That’s besides the total initial investment, which so far amounts to €110 million.
House hunters: The Parliament, sometimes in collaboration with the Commission or in public-private partnerships — has splashed out on renting or buying property in prime locations in Europe’s capitals. The EU pumped an “initial investment” of €13.4 million on a property in Dublin — priciest set-up cost.
Now THIS is Brat: The EU spent almost €7 million setting up its “House of Europe” in the notoriously expensive city of … Bratislava. It will serve the Parliament and Commission, in addition to another Europa Experience.
Footfall fail: It costs a visitor nothing to go to one of the museums — because the EU taxpayer picks up the tab. In Copenhagen in 2023, fewer than 9,000 people visited, at a cost to the taxpayer of €46 per person. In Paris, just over 32,000 people visited, costing the taxpayer €92 a head to get the Europa Experience in the swanky Madeleine district. It costs €36 per visitor in Tallinn, with around 19,000 people popping by in 2023.
On the flip side: The Strasbourg museum costs taxpayers just €4 a head and over 335,000 visited in 2023. Helsinki costs €9 per visitor, with close to 33,000 popping by. And in 2023 there were almost 100,000 visitors to the Berlin museum (which was the first outside of Brussels when it opened in 2016), setting the taxpayer back €10 each. A total of 3.5 million people have visited all the spaces so far.
Black hole: “It is necessary to assess the causes of the poorer performance of some centres and address these before potentially replicating shortcomings in other centres,” Chiocchetti wrote in his note ahead of a meeting of senior MEPs on Nov. 25. The Parliament should think twice before paying over the odds for property in prime locations, he argued.
If it’s not working, don’t fix it: On top of the ones in Brussels, Strasbourg and many EU capital cities, MEPs in 2021 approved five more visitor centers in Munich, Marseille, Milan, Barcelona and Wrocław. None of them have been built yet.
Mid-term review: The Parliament’s press service said the visitor centers are “designed to introduce European democracy to visitors and citizens in Member States.” They added: “Best practices and potential improvements are being looked into as [an] essential part of this mid-term evaluation requested.”
Alessandro Cut-chetti: Chiocchetti is trying to maneuver the Parliament’s €2 billion-per-year budget away from prestige projects and instead increase its work on legislation and scrutinizing the Commission. He will soon take an ax to large directorate generals for innovation and tech support, and communication. “It is normal that the Bureau [of senior MEPs] regularly reflects on its past decisions and adapts in order to assure value for money,” said Klaus Welle.
MORE PARLIAMENT NEWS
DEADLOCK OVER NEW COMMITTEES: The leaders of the European Parliament’s groups couldn’t reach a deal to greenlight four new committees during their Conference of Presidents meeting on Wednesday, after the EPP attempted a last-minute power-grab.
What happened: In a deal struck on Tuesday, MEPs agreed to upgrade the junior health and defense committees, and to create two new committees tasked with drawing up recommendations on interference in democracy (left by the liberals) and the housing crisis (led by the Socialists).
But on Wednesday, the EPP insisted its negotiators should be the ones to take the lead on the democracy and housing committees, two group officials said. That blocked agreement on all four committees under consideration. There’s still time to find agreement before the end of the week, the officials said, in time for lawmakers to give the final OK during next week’s plenary session.
MEPs HAVE (SIDE) HUSTLE: Nearly one in three EU lawmakers are bringing in additional income on top of their MEP salary, according to new research released today from Transparency International EU. While that’s legal, the NGO argues there’s a clear conflict of interest, given many MEPs sit on committees that write the policy affecting the industry these lawmakers might represent (on the side).
SYRIA IN STRASBOURG: EU lawmakers will debate Syria next week with Kaja Kallas. They’re seeking to agree on a common resolution regarding the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime and its humanitarian and geopolitical implications, with a vote due to be held at a subsequent plenary session, according to the latest schedule published Wednesday evening.
REYNDERS ALSO ON THE AGENDA: Lawmakers will also debate the “need to ensure swift action and transparency on corruption allegations in the public sector to protect democratic integrity,” following a money-laundering investigation launched into former Commissioner Didier Reynders.
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
MEET THE NEW COLLEGE: POLITICO has been busy interviewing the EU’s new crop of commissioners. Here are three more …
McGrath’s olive branch to Orbán: “It is never too late for anyone to pull back from the brink or to bring about positive change,” the EU’s new rule of law chief Michael McGrath told Mathieu Pollet and Pieter Haeck when asked about Hungary under Viktor Orbán. Read the full interview.
Hoekstra warns (geopolitical) winter is coming: “We clearly have entered a geopolitical winter,” the EU’s climate chief Wopke Hoekstra told my colleagues Barbara Moens and Zia Weise. For the lanky Dutchman, who oversees international climate negotiations for the EU, the next few years are likely to be bumpy as he tries to convince the rest of the world to ramp up efforts to cut emissions, while also facing pushback from his own center-right political family on scale of the EU’s own climate ambitions.
Jørgensen vows to end Russian fuel ties for good: Dan Jørgensen told Victor Jack and Gabriel Gavin that he’s making it his “main priority” to craft a plan that will finally sever all EU energy links with Russia. Jørgensen said his plan will focus “on gas primarily, but also oil and nuclear,” and will land within the first 100 days of his taking office, effectively giving himself a mid-March deadline.
DEVELOPMENT FOR DUMMIES? Why is the European Commission plagued by IT security problems? Look no further than the institution’s own developers, according to Philippe Van Damme, deputy director general of DG DIGIT. Speaking at an internal meeting on Dec. 4 (which Playbook has seen a recording of), Van Damme said: “Most of the security incidents in the Commission [are] because of stupidity by developers in the DGs,” adding that “ignorant” developers have too much freedom to wreak havoc.
Publish and be Damme: In an email, Van Damme first denied making the comments, then claimed he’d actually said “stupidities” rather than “stupidity.” Regardless, “The point that I made is that security awareness is not just an issue for all staff members, but it is particularly important for IT staff as the impact of mistakes is higher. And on that you can quote me.”
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
TRUMP INVITES XI TO INAUGURATION: Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to his inauguration as U.S. president, “multiple sources” told CBS News. Viktor Orbán, who visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago this week, is also considering attending, CBS reports, citing a source familiar with Orbán’s plans.
What did Orbán do after visiting Mar-a-Lago? You guessed it — called Russian President Vladimir Putin. That’s Putin’s second call with an EU leader in recent weeks, after he spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Orbán “ expressed interest in promoting a joint search for ways to resolve the crisis politically and diplomatically, including taking into account his contacts with a number of Western leaders,” the Kremlin said in its readout of the call. The Kyiv Independent has a write-up.
TRUMP HASN’T GIVEN RIC THE FLICK: Trump is now considering tapping Richard Grenell, his former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence, as a special envoy for Iran, Reuters reports.
CEASE-FIRE MOVEMENT: Hamas has yielded to two of Israel’s key demands for a cease-fire deal in Gaza, Arab mediators told the Wall Street Journal. Per the paper, the militant group said it would agree to allow Israeli forces to remain in Gaza temporarily when the fighting stops, and has handed over a list of hostages it would release.
Now read this: Instead of igniting a war that would destroy Israel, Hamas lit the fuse that set much of the region on fire, writes Frida Ghitis.
GERMANY SEEKS QUICK CONTACT WITH NEW SYRIAN LEADERS: The German government is planning a prompt “fact-finding trip” to Damascus following the fall of the Assad regime to facilitate “the swift establishment of contact with new actors, possibly even a Syrian transitional government,” Berlin Playbook reports today. It’s all part of an “8-Point Plan for a Free and Democratic Syria.”
Happening today: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has invited her counterparts from France, the U.K., Poland, Italy, Spain and Ukraine, plus the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, to the Borsig Palace today. They’ll talk Ukraine, peacekeeping forces, preparing for Trump, plus Syria and Germany’s eight-point plan.
Syrian view: Europe’s Syrians have been shaken by the debate over repatriation to their war-ravaged homeland, reports Nette Nöstlinger.
IN OTHER NEWS
FRENCH PM TIME: French President Emmanuel Macron could name his new prime minister today, having said on Tuesday that he would announce one “in the next 48 hours.”
While you wait … read this story on Marine Le Pen’s dilemma: Is she a stateswoman or a saboteur?
SCHENGEN EXPANSION: The EU’s interior ministers are set to approve Bulgaria and Romania’s full entry into the Schengen free travel zone at the Justice and Home Affairs Council today, after Austria dropped its objections.
CĂL-IN THE DIGITAL COPS: The Digital Services Act, aka the EU’s new social media rules, are being tested to their limits by allegations of an orchestrated TikTok campaign to rig Romania’s presidential election, Pieter Haeck reports.
ECB EXPECTED TO CUT RATES AGAIN TODAY: The European Central Bank is expected to cut rates by another 25 basis points today to 3 percent.
ICYMI — SANCTIONS DEAL: The EU will blacklist dozens of oil and gas tankers helping Moscow earn billions from illicit fossil fuel sales after officials finalized a deal during talks on Wednesday.