Quake sequence continues in Cyclades; 5.0-magnitude tremor recorded
The barrage of earthquakes in the Cyclades islands continued Sunday, with the strongest tremor clocking at 5.0-magnitude.
Schools are safe on Santorini and Amorgos, inspectors say after inspections
Technical teams found that schools on Santorini and Amorgos were safe for use, after their inspections were completed on Saturday.
Greece to protest Italy deal with Turkey
Greece is preparing a formal protest against Italy over its defense agreement with Turkey, just days after a high-level discussion between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and French President Emmanuel Macron regarding the sale of Meteor air-to-air missiles to Ankara.
PM Mitsotakis attending AI Action Summit in Paris on Monday; meeting with Macron
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will attend the two-day Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris on Monday. On Monday, the Greek premier will also meet with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace. According to government sources, the two leaders will proceed with a comprehensive overview of Greek-French relations, while discussing issues of European and regional interest, with a focus on the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean and Syria.
ATHEX: Highs unseen in almost 14 years
The Greek stock market posted fresh gains on Friday, at the end of yet another week of price growth, the seventh in a row, to see its benchmark climb to levels unseen in almost 14 years – i.e. since March 2011. Investors are dismissing any concerns about political instability and are focusing instead on the business landscape that has recently offered several mergers and acquisitions as well as opportunities for investment in mid- and small-caps.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1261050/athex-highs-unseen-in-almost-14-years
SUNDAY PAPERS
KATHIMERINI: No more fake expenditure declarations for professionals
TO VIMA: Earthquake activity: the underground tunnel in the rock
REAL NEWS: Tempi rail crash: evidence reveal the existence of a flammable fluid
PROTO THEMA: The earthquake hazard for illegal constructions in Santorini
MONDAY PAPERS:
TA NEA: 4+1 crucial secrets for the recruitment of 15,000 permanent personnel
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Minister of Culture will fill Serifos landmark with cement
KONTRA NEWS: Reports on the Tempi fatal crash blocked by “ghost” videos
DIMOKRATIA: Vaccine against lung cancer
NAFTEMPORIKI: This year’s tax clearances point to larger revenues
DRIVING THE DAY: PARIS AI SUMMIT
U.S. VEEP TO EUROPE — YOU’RE “WRONG” ON TECH RULES: Brace for impact. U.S. Vice President JD Vance — who once said Washington could stop supporting NATO if allies “censor” American platforms — is set to collide with Europe as he attends the two-day AI Summit in Paris that begins today, before hopping over to the Munich Security Conference.
This will be interesting. My U.S. colleague Irie Sentner reports Vance told Breitbart before his departure that he sees the defense of free speech as part of Trump’s “moral leadership” in the world. He added: “Unfortunately, a lot of our European friends have gone the wrong direction here.”
That message, which Vance will deliver in a keynote, is set to come up hard against the EU’s far-reaching digital rulebook, including the Digital Services Act, which covers online content, and the AI Act, the world’s first binding rules for AI.
Perfect timing: Indeed, as Vance arrives in Europe, a German court has ordered Elon Musk’s X platform to hand over politically relevant data ahead of a national election on Feb. 23, while the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into allegations of algorithmic bias on X.
What to expect: Asked what they expected to hear from Vance in Paris, one EU official aware of the summit prep said: “He won’t be there to listen. He will be aggressive. He will say our digital rules suck and that they are discriminating against U.S. tech companies.”
Vance meets VDL: The person familiar with Vance’s plans said he would meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas. A Commission spokesperson said Vance and von der Leyen would meet Tuesday.
Pity the speechwriter. Von der Leyen will be hard-pressed to walk this tightrope in her remarks in Paris, navigating between techno-optimism and the tricky subject of how the EU intends to uphold its own rules.
Gift package: According to the same official, who was granted anonymity to discuss summit preparations, the Commission is weighing an announcement on AI that will include “repackaged initiatives” and “money.” How much isn’t clear, but Trump’s announcement of a $500 billion investment into AI is a benchmark.
Live from Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday a €109 billion investment into AI “over the coming years.” Where the money will come from as Paris struggles to finalize a budget is anyone’s guess, but that won’t stop Macron — who will also promote France’s AI assistant tool, called Le Chat, by Mistral AI. (Curtain raiser for the AI Summit by Pieter Haeck here.)
Reminder: When elected, Macron vowed to make France a tech leader — today’s summit aimed to showcase that. Clea Caulcutt traces how Trump’s $500 billion AI investment and DeepSeek’s breakthrough derailed the plan and sent shockwaves through Paris and Europe.
This is serious. Tech lies at the heart of the EU’s relationship with the new Trump administration. That’s a worrying prospect for Europe just a few days before the Munich Security Conference, where a future peace deal for Ukraine and the future of European defense will be discussed. (POLITICO will be reporting extensively from on the ground at the MSC.)
Speaking of the new U.S. administration and Ukraine: Lest anyone forget, the last time Vance was in Munich he dodged Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (the two are set to meet this time). Accompanying Vance at the MSC will be Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. The trip comes after Trump told the New York Post over the weekend that he’d spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and last week said he planned to make a deal with Kyiv “where they will secure what we’re providing them with their rare earth materials and other resources.”
Bottom line: Europe has few good options as it attempts to navigate its relationship with the new U.S. administration while standing by its tech regulations. The fact von der Leyen is meeting with Vance is encouraging — but given his track record on the EU, may amount to little.
CANADA-EU SUMMIT
GETTING CLOSER: With Europe facing the prospect of tariffs from Washington at any minute (Trump overnight said he will today announce 25 percent tariffs on all imports of steel and aluminum), outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is coming to Paris and Brussels this week to seek closer ties with the EU. The PM will meet with European leaders during a summit set for later this week in Brussels.
From the statement: Trudeau will “join his EU counterparts to … discuss ways to advance our collective efforts to strengthen transatlantic security, protect the rules-based international order, continue supporting Ukraine.”
Looking for allies: He’s looking not only to deepen trade ties with the EU but also to find partners with whom to team up in an increasingly volatile world, in which trust among allies is at a premium. The Economist has gone so far as to argue Canada should join the EU.
A bridge too far: In a chat with Playbook and my Morning Trade colleague Jakob Weizman, Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng didn’t flag an upcoming membership application, but she touted efforts to bolster trade ties between Canada and the Union.
Trade booming: Fresh from a meeting with European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, Ng highlighted a 65-percent increase in trade between Canada and the EU since the CETA free trade agreement entered into force in 2017 — as well as $445 billion in two-way direct investment.
Can always get better: “That’s terrific, but we could do more,” said Ng. “Trade agreements are good, but they’re better if you can get more of our businesses into each other’s markets.” She and Šefčovič were looking into ways to bolster CETA, while Canada would be interested in reaching an agreement on critical minerals with the EU.
Fact check: CETA has entered provisional force but isn’t fully ratified — 10 EU countries, led by France, haven’t given final sign-off on the deal. Ng said she and her team were working to find a solution before a March 1 deadline. “What I hope we don’t have are tariffs. That’s the first order of business.”
INCOMING: Aboard Air Force One last night as the U.S. president traveled to New Orleans to watch the Philadelphia Eagles trounce the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, he announced plans to impose 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports as soon as today. “Everybody, steel. Any steel coming into the United States will have 25 percent tariffs — aluminum too,” Trump said. Watch the clip on X here and read more from my U.S. colleague Ari Hawkins.
Cars in the eye of the storm: Trump had on Friday flagged he would be announcing tariffs this week that match the duties imposed by other countries (in an apparent shift from his previous threat to impose an across-the-board tariff of 10 to 20 percent on all imports from across the world). The U.S. in many cases has lower tariffs than other countries for the same product. Trump did not specify whether there would be exclusions to the new round of duties.
Purely coincidentally: The EU is looking to reduce its 10 percent tariff on cars to match them with the U.S. level of 2.5 percent, Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, told the FT.
PATRIOTS IN MADRID
PATRIOTS’ MADRID GATHERING — HOW IT WENT DOWN: The Patriots for Europe, the third-largest EU political family, held its first rally in Madrid with figures including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, France’s Marine Le Pen, Spain’s Santiago Abascal, Czechia’s Andrej Babiš, Austria’s Herbert Kickl and Italy’s Matteo Salvini on the speakers’ roster. Read more here by my colleague Max Griera, who was on the ground.
On the menu? Scrapping the Green Deal, battling Islam and migration, taking down EU institutions, opposing gender and family diversity and fighting “population replacement.” Trump’s victory was also the highlight of the day, with all leaders agreeing it heralds a new era of conservative governments across the world.
“Reconquering” Europe: One after the other, speakers vowed to “reconquer” Europe’s governments from Socialist, liberal and center-right forces — building an explicit parallel to Spain’s “Reconquista,” when Christian kingdoms reconquered the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rulers in the Middle Ages. “People have had enough of illegal immigration,” said Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose PVV party has been in government since May last year. “And I ask you, do you have enough of crime in Spain? Do you have a lot of Islamic immigration in Spain? Do you have enough of woke insanity?”
Looking for EPP allies: The Patriots don’t have the numbers for their radical agenda. Le Pen said she hopes they will be able to agree on scrapping the Green Deal and other points with Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), and that certain members of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) are ready to play ball. “We ask you for the vision and courage to stop collaborating with the socialists and the left in Brussels,” said Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Salvini. “The EPP must choose between a disastrous past and a future of change.”
Meanwhile Abascal, the leader of Spain’s Vox party and the president of the Patriots, said: “We have to reach out permanently to our allies in Europe.” He wished Alternative for Germany’s Alice Weidel, from the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group, success in the upcoming German election.
SPEAKING OF THE GERMAN ELECTION: Chancellor Olaf Scholz and conservative frontrunner Friedrich Merz tore into each other over migration, the economy and how to handle Trump in a debate last night. Write-up here.
Now read this: Volkswagen’s Zwickau plant once symbolized Germany’s bright manufacturing future — now, it’s fertile territory for the country’s rising far right, report Nette Nöstlinger and Carlo Martuscelli.
RUSSIAN INFLUENCE
RARE RUSSIAN LEAK: The FT has seen a Russian government presentation which indicates Moscow is concerned that Western pressure, including via sanctions, is hampering its ability to draw former Soviet nations closer into its orbit and build ties with the Global South. The report was apparently shown at a strategy session led by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin last April.
XI TO GO TO MOSCOW AGAIN: Chinese President Xi Jinping accepted an invitation to attend Putin’s Victory Day commemoration in Moscow on May 9, per Russia state media.
INSIDE THE BATTLE FOR THE BALTIC: The EU is under pressure to crack down on the aging armada of oil tankers Russia is using to circumvent Western sanctions, amid concerns they are being used as part of a hybrid warfare campaign against critical undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. Hundreds of rickety, under-insured vessels operate in the sensitive waterway, carrying crude from Russia to countries around the world. Now, Brussels is working out what options it has to squeeze them.
Time to act: Several Baltic and Nordic countries are in the process of exploring national legislation and reinterpreting international law to target the so-called shadow fleet, while also calling on the Commission for action, my colleagues Victor Jack and Gabriel Gavin report from the region. “The question is … what can we do with these ships?” said Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna. “We cannot block all the sea, but we can control more.”
DO SVIDANIYA TO RUSSIAN POWER: These efforts are all the more important after the Baltics on Saturday successfully disconnected from Russia’s Soviet-designed power grid for the first time in history, switching over to the European grid more than three decades after gaining independence from Moscow. Local officials told POLITICO that a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign was being waged to spread fear ahead of the disconnection. More on that from Gabriel here.
VdL’s power play: Speaking at a press conference on Sunday alongside the Polish and Baltic presidents, Ursula von der Leyen vowed that “chains of power lines linking you to a hostile neighbor will be a thing of the past.” At the same time, the Commission chief unveiled a four-point plan designed to deter, detect, repair and punish Russian-linked vessels involved in suspected sabotage in the Baltic Sea.
MEANWHILE, TRUMP’S PEACE PLAN WORRIES WEBER: The U.S. president’s idea for ending the war in Ukraine has EPP leader Manfred Weber on edge. “Europe must be ready to take on more responsibility for Ukraine,” he told my Berlin Playbook colleagues. But it’s a nein on troop talk. “There is no point in speculating about a peace-keeping force now,” Weber said. “We will see whether there is a chance for a cease-fire that our Ukrainian friends can accept.” Only then, he added, could Europe’s broader role be discussed.
IN OTHER NEWS
KOSOVO ELECTION: The ruling leftist-populist Self-Determination party of Prime Minister Albin Kurti won a general election in Kosovo on Sunday, but fell short of an outright majority. Latest here.
LIECHTENSTEIN ELECTION: Liechtenstein on Sunday voted for Brigitte Haas to lead its government, with her Fatherland Union party winning 38.3 percent of votes. Read more.
VDL’S PLAN FOR A REBOOT: Ursula von der Leyen will present her plan to revive the European Union’s flagging economy to over 300 industry leaders in Antwerp on Feb. 26, Jordyn Dahl reports.
E TU, ITALIA? After Trump announced sanctions against the International Criminal Court, EU chiefs chastized the U.S. president and 78 signatory countries of the Rome statute signed a statement in support of the court. Three EU countries abstained: Hungary (unsurprisingly), the Czech Republic (owing to its strong support for Israel) and … Italy. Rome’s absence from the statement is an early sign that Europe’s so-called united front against Trump’s White House might be cracking, with Italy in the pro-Trump contingent.
SHOULD CALIFORNIA JOIN THE EU? In response to Trump’s push to acquire Greenland, the “Denmarkification” campaign seeks to buy California from the U.S. and make it Danish territory. The offer is enticing: A trillion dollars and a lifetime supply of Danish pastries, which “Hollywood will pay for,” Xavier Dutoit, who started the campaign, told Playbook reporter Šejla Ahmatović. Lego execs should run the talks, per Dutoit, because “dealing with children throwing tantrums over missing bricks has made them experts in negotiation.”