State of emergency declared on Santorini due to earthquakes
A state of emergency was declared in the municipality of Thera – or, otherwise, Santorini – on Thursday, due to the ongoing earthquakes in the area, by Civil Protection Secretary General Vasilis Papageorgiou.
https://www.amna.gr/en/article/882226/State-of-emergency-declared-on-Santorini-due-to-earthquakes
Minister steps down amid probe into Tempe rail crash
Deputy Civil Protection Minister Christos Triantopoulos resigned from his post following PASOK’s proposal for a parliamentary inquiry into alleged cover-up efforts at the disaster site of the Tempe train crash in central Greece in 2023.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1260891/minister-steps-down-amid-probe-into-tempe-rail-crash
Turkey hardens stance, issues threats
Turkey has warned it will intervene to protect its rights and interests in the waters off the southern Greek island of Crete.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/foreign-policy/1260903/turkey-hardens-stance-issues-threats
Greece signs military training agreement with Egypt, trilateral action plan with Cyprus
A Greek-Egyptian military agreement and a joint action plan among Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt were signed at the Hellenic National Defence General Staff (HNDGS) in Athens.
ATHEX: Bourse sees renewed interest
The upcoming deal for the acquisition by Piraeus Bank of 70% of Ethniki Insurance from the CVC fund for some 469 million euros brought fresh interest to the local stock market on Thursday. The bourse also welcomed back foreign funds that had temporarily fled due to fears of a trade war across the Atlantic. Investors currently appear to be shrugging off any concerns about domestic political stability.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1260910/athex-bourse-sees-renewed-interest
KATHIMERINI: Ankara insists on hard stance
TA NEA: Wiretappings 2 with new software
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Tempe rail crash – Wiretappings: Even those voting for the right talk of cover-up
RIZOSPASTIS: Students are rallying against the “rails of profit”
KONTRA NEWS: The CIA bribed Greeks via USAID
DIMOKRATIA: Deputy Minister with expiration date
NAFTEMPORIKI: Towards new heights for incomes and taxes
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DRIVING THE DAY: SOFT POWER VACUUM
HOWDY. Sarah Wheaton back with you here for your regularly scheduled programming in this Friday edition of Brussels Playbook. Nick Vinocur holds the pen Monday.
USAID CUTS SLICE THROUGH EU’S PLANS: Since Donald Trump’s reelection and even before that, the theme has been all about hard power. The EU needs to spend more on its own defense, build its own weapons and cultivate “strategic autonomy.” That’s an overarching topic as European commissioners, including President Ursula von der Leyen, gather to spend the day in Gdańsk with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk — and ahead of next week’s Munich Security Conference, which will be a schmooze-fest with defense contractors and strategists (POLITICO will be on the ground to cover it all).
Humanitarian hole: With all but 300 of USAID’s 13,000 workers set to go on administrative leave today, the EU might suddenly face demands to fill the hole left by the agency’s $40 billion development budget just when it’s trying to push more toward defense — and when economic pressures mean more demands on social systems at home.
Case in point: Germany, the second largest government donor to humanitarian aid after the U.S. Berlin and allies are already stressing over alternatives, Hans von der Burchard reports. After all, it’s not just USAID — Trump’s plans to leave the World Health Organization will threaten pandemic preparedness in Africa, for example. The situation is “very dangerous,” said Nils Schmid, the Social Democrats’ foreign policy spokesperson. “Unlike during Trump’s first term in office, other countries such as Germany are less able to compensate for this because the current budget situation is much tighter.”
What’s at stake: Funding for the Balkans is especially likely to dry up, my colleague Eric Bazail-Eimil reports, as will non-military assistance to Ukraine. Over at POLITICO’s EU Influence newsletter, Elisa Braun considers how the loss of U.S. support could hurt democracy promotion efforts in the EU’s eastern neighborhood — clearing obstacles to Russian interference.
Pressing the issue with Trump’s team: After months of relative silence, EU foreign ministers are likely to finally meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as Trump’s envoy for the Ukraine-Russia war Keith Kellogg, on Wednesday in Paris, Hans hears, though it’s not set in stone.
HOW TO FRAME AN ARGUMENT FOR NON-DEFENSE EU FUNDING: “Culture is part and parcel of our work on democracy and our work on strengthening the Union, including our security in Europe,” said Glenn Micallef, who granted his inaugural interview as the youth, sport and culture commissioner to my colleagues Pieter Haeck and Eddy Wax.
TRADE WARS
SHIELDING BIG TECH: The Trump administration will consider new trade action against countries in Europe and around the world that impose digital trade barriers on the U.S., including digital services taxes, trade rep nominee Jamieson Greer told U.S. lawmakers Thursday. “If anybody’s regulating our digital companies, it’s going to be us,” Greer said. More from Doug Palmer here.
Who is most at risk in the event of a transatlantic trade war? Giovanna Coi has the analysis and graphics.
HEADLINES WE CAN RELATE TO: In Kentucky bourbon country, the prospect of a trade war feels like a hangover that won’t go away, from the Associated Press.
Speaking of stocking up … listen up: In the process of recording this week’s episode of the EU Confidential podcast, we learned that imports of Parmigiano cheese to the U.S. jumped by 10 percent last year as Americans braced for tariffs on European foodstuffs. After all, it’s a key part of the storied Mediterranean diet.
“Gastronationalism”: But as our colleague Alessandro Ford explained, it turns out the diet isn’t so healthy anymore. That hasn’t stopped it from landing at the center of Italy’s fight against EU climate and health regs, just one example of the “gastronationalism” sweeping the bloc. Plus, Pieter Haeck has a primer on Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s EVP for tech, democracy and security. Listen here.
WHAT ELSE TRUMP HAS BEEN UP TO: The Trump administration is shuttering Task Force KleptoCapture, created in 2022 to enforce sanctions and target Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin, Reuters reports … and Trump signed an executive order issuing sanctions against the International Criminal Court, accusing it of “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting the U.S. and Israel.
MEGA MIXER
PATRIOTS FOR EUROPE RAIN DOWN ON SPAIN: The “Make Europe Great Again” gathering of the far-right Patriots for Europe party kicks off today in sunny Madrid. Though nothing official has been announced, senior figures including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally are expected to meet behind closed doors, writes Max Griera, who is on the ground to bring you the latest.
The big public show is on Saturday morning when the leaders of the Patriots’ national member parties will take the stage at Madrid’s Marriott Auditorium (next to the airport) with speeches boasting about the winds of change coming to Europe following Trump’s election. Other speakers include Patriots president and Spanish Vox party leader Santiago Abascal, Italy’s Lega leader Matteo Salvini, Dutch PVV chief Geert Wilders and Czech ANO’s Andrej Babiš.
AUSTRIAN COALITION TALKS RESTART: Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Herbert Kickl will address the MEGA rally via video on Saturday. He’s occupied in Vienna — after a break in discussions, the FPÖ and the center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) are diving back into coalition negotiations, public broadcaster ORF reports. It could see in a Kickl chancellorship.
OUR OWN BACKYARD
GANG WARS ROCK BRUSSELS: Kalashnikovs. A metro-tunnel manhunt. Territorial disputes and reprisals.
Brussels is reeling from three shootings linked to drug trafficking. On Thursday, Brussels Mayor Philippe Close convened an urgent meeting with the mayors of the city’s different municipalities to discuss the security concerns.
Who’s in charge here? Belgium’s newly installed federal governing coalition has pledged a “zero-tolerance” response to drugs around metro stations; Interior Minister Bernard Quintin made a point of ordering more federal police in the subway. But Brussels still lacks a regional government, with Francophone Socialists resisting a team-up with Flemish nationalists.
The fierce urgency of … then: “Of course it’s an emergency,” Jean Spinette, mayor of Brussels’ Saint-Gilles municipality, told POLITICO. “But it has been an emergency since I became mayor two years ago.” Read the full article from Elena Giordano, Ketrin Jochecová and Hanne Cokelaere.
IN OTHER NEWS
BEIJING’S ALPHA WOLF TO BRUSSELS: China named Lu Shaye, the former ambassador to France, as its new senior EU envoy. In Paris, the Chinese ambassador “built a reputation for an at times flagrant disregard of diplomatic protocol, spreading disinformation and going a bit rogue on Twitter,” my colleagues reported in this must-read 2023 story.
STOLTENBERG DEFENDS NORWAY: Norway’s new Foreign Minister Jens Stoltenberg rejected accusations his country is a “war profiteer,” telling the FT in an interview that it had provided essential energy supplies for Europe since Russia launched its war on Ukraine.
Now read this: Ukraine is marking the six-month anniversary of its Kursk incursion, reports Veronika Melkozerova.
HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND — KOSOVO VOTES: Kosovars will weigh in on Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s four-year tenure in Sunday’s parliamentary election. While Kurti is ahead in the polls, the opposition is closing in, and Trump’s “special missions” envoy Richard Grenell put his thumb on the scales against the incumbent, as the journalist Una Hajdari notes. The Atlantic Council has a nice primer.
ALSO HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND — BALTICS UNCOUPLE: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia will this weekend disconnect from the Soviet-designed electricity grid.
GERMAN ELECTION DATA: POLITICO crunched 35 years’ worth of German election data to find out why this month’s vote is messier than ever ― and what will happen next.
KEEP (GEORGIAN) DREAMIN’: Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze is “very optimistic” that his country will join the EU by 2030, he told Euronews. That’s despite the fact that Brussels put the accession process on deep freeze in June amid the Georgian Dream-led government’s embrace of Kremlin-inspired moves to stifle opposition.
And it’s not getting any better. On Thursday, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos called Tbilisi’s planned crackdown on protesters “alarming.”
GALIZIA MURDER SUSPECT OUT ON BAIL: Yorgen Fenech, charged five years ago in the killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, has been released from prison, per Times of Malta. It’s unclear when he’ll face trial.