PM Mitsotakis at NATO Summit: Greece strengthens its armed forces
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, at a press conference after the NATO Summit in The Hague, stressed that Greece strengthens its armed forces. He also emphasised that defence spending will serve as a significant catalyst for development, with the goal of establishing a strong defence ecosystem in Greece.
Libya, Turkey sign MoU on offshore areas, Athens reiterates rejection
Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkish state oil company TPAO to conduct a geological and geophysical study of four offshore areas, NOC said on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis reiterated that the Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum is “unacceptable, illegal, and baseless,” stressing once again that it carries no legal effect. He made the remarks during a press conference following the NATO Summit in The Hague.
Farming subsidy scandal investigation file reaches Parliament
A criminal investigation file into Greece’s agricultural payments agency arrived at Parliament late Wednesday, opening a new chapter in a corruption probe that threatens to engulf the governing party in fresh scandal.
Justice Min Floridis presents new Civil Procedure Code aiming to reduce court decision times
Minister of Justice Giorgos Floridis and Deputy Minister Ioannis Bougas presented on Wednesday the provisions of the new Code of Civil Procedure, which will be implemented starting 16 September 2025. Floridis noted that the new provisions are expected to significantly reduce the time required to issue court decisions.
ATHEX to wait more for upgrade
MSCI equity analysts have avoided incorporating the Greek stock market in its “watch list” for inclusion in the world’s developed markets, but did praise its features on Wednesday, leaving the local bourse with a mixed session that ended up with small gains for the benchmark during the closing auctions. Traders and the management of Hellenic Exchanges agree it is only a matter of time till Athinon Avenue joins the other developed markets.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1273474/athex-to-wait-more-for-upgrade







KATHIMERINI: Issuance of court decisions within 2 years

TA NEA: New Civil Procedure Code: faster opening of wills; digital legal documents

EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Europe’s abduction by Trump

RIZOSPASTIS: Songs and rallying against the war

KONTRA NEWS: Hazard of heated incident due to Turkey’s new provocation

DIMOKRATIA: Consecutive diplomatic defeats for Greece

NAFTEMPORIKI: “Storm” of new tax regulations


DRIVING THE DAY: EUCO
BECOME RELEVANT OR DIE TRYING: The ambition for today’s Council summit is clear: Europe needs to wriggle out of its funk and become the superpower it deserves to be. To get there, leaders will need to tackle a handful of major foreign and domestic issues. Chief among them is how to fund a major defense spending boost after signing up (in theory) to an ambitious 5 percent target in The Hague on Wednesday (see below for more).
Stumbling blocks: Meanwhile, they’ll also have to chart a course through the Middle East after an internal review found Israel in breach of its humanitarian obligations and with increasing pressure to take action from a coalition of countries (also see below). And on top of that, they’ll have to address concerns from Hungary and Slovakia about the planned exit from Russian energy, gaining support for new sanctions on the revenue streams funding Moscow’s war. Expect tensions over the green agenda, too, after France pushed to delay a key climate milestone, as my colleagues Zia Weise, Nicolas Camut and Louise Guillot report.
Bookmark this: POLITICO will be running our customary EUCO live blog, kicking off soon here.
THE COSTA DOING BUSINESS: The president of the European Council, António Costa, sat down with Playbook’s Gabriel Gavin ahead of the summit. “I’m optimistic,” he said of the prospect of doing a deal on the thorniest issues. “And after the meeting, I will say whether I’m happy or not.”
Trade winds are blowing: “We are a trade powerhouse and we need to use this to engage with our partners,” Costa said. However, the former Portuguese prime minister insisted that a detailed discussion of an impending trade deal with the U.S. administration was unlikely, although the Commission would be asked to provide an update on its progress.
Better together: “It’s interesting because everybody was afraid that … some member states could have the temptation to try to have bilateral negotiations,” Costa said. “But it hasn’t happened. Everybody has been working together, supporting the European Commission’s negotiation. And we stand united.”
THE DOLLA MAKES EU HOLLA
SNAPPING AT THE BENJAMIN’S HEELS: Some of the Council’s ambitions are indeed deliriously lofty. According to preliminary Council conclusions seen by POLITICO’s Matthieu Pollet, leaders will examine ways to boost the “international role of the euro” — an increasingly popular buzzphrase deployed by financial officials keen to exploit the turmoil of Trump’s return to the White House to pitch the single currency as an alternative to the U.S. dollar.
Best of both worlds: This push for prominence happens to provide neat justification for a range of long-neglected policy goals favored particularly by France and Italy. These include continuing the controversial drive toward “simplifying” EU financial rules, centralizing and deepening the bloc’s capital markets, and, above all, creating a lasting market for pan-European bonds, following the EU’s dabbling with the concept during the pandemic.
In theory, those policies would boost foreign investment, extending the euro’s reach and making it easier for indebted EU countries to raise money. But expect pushback from the usual suspects, with both the German and Dutch finance ministries already reaffirming their revulsion at the prospect of joint debt to my colleague Johanna Treeck.
White knight on the Main: The key difference now is that leaders in favor might find some unlikely support from that avatar of fiscal restraint, the European Central Bank. Its president, Christine Lagarde, has been the leading proponent of a more muscular role for the common currency, calling for a “global euro moment” back in May.
Tail risks dragging the dog: The Frankfurt-based ECB is usually wary of anything with a whiff of indebtedness, but is beginning to come around to the prospect of joint debt in particular, according to two Eurosystem officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. As growing dollar skepticism makes the euro look dependable and Europe’s need for strategic independence mounts, “there’s much more openness” toward the idea, one of them (admittedly an Italian) told Playbook.
Candor on the eastern front: Those at Europe’s bleeding frontier are content to speak more freely. Mārtiņš Kazāks, the outspoken governor of Latvia’s central bank and a top ECB official, reckons the EU has been dithering for too long — and that now is the time to cultivate a global reserve currency worthy of its nearly 450 million-strong population. “Europe needs to become a fully fledged geopolitical superpower, and this is a make-or-break moment,” he told Playbook.
One shot: However, “this isn’t about replacing the U.S. dollar,” Kazāks warned. “The dollar is far ahead, and the U.S. benefits from a strong partnership. But there’s a global move away from the dollar — those funds need to go somewhere. Europe could benefit from that, but we’d need a safe asset.”
One to wait on: Don’t get your hopes up about anything happening on this today. As my colleague Giovanna Faggionato reports, it’s not clear that there will be a serious discussion on the topic — at least this time. “The conclusions have been agreed already. I think this will fizzle out,” a diplomat told her. Another official told Carlo Martuscelli that more substantial discussions are likely at the October Eurogroup summit.
Merz moves: Meanwhile, European leaders will also discuss the best way to negotiate with Trump over tariffs, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz planning to advocate for a faster, rough-and-ready deal, to the chagrin of EU colleagues, POLITICO’s Hans von der Burchard reports. Merz will also notably attend a gathering on the margins of anti-migration leaders featuring Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen.
Speaking of which … As Denmark prepares to take over the EU’s rotating presidency from Poland in July, Nick Vinocur reports that Copenhagen is expected to try to advance stricter rules for asylum-seekers and a more robust approach to European defense.
MIDDLE EAST
THE EU’S ISRAEL RECKONING: EU leaders at today’s summit will also discuss how to respond to the recent review finding that Israel may have reached a bilateral agreement with Brussels by committing human rights abuses in Gaza (full background here).
Decision time: The question is whether the EU will suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which would require a qualified majority vote in the Council. On Wednesday, Playbook met with Nick Flynn, legal campaigns director at Avaaz, a human rights NGO. Flynn was in Brussels as part of a demonstration in Place Jean Rey featuring two doctors who recently returned from Gaza and recounted harrowing scenes from the humanitarian crisis.
Needless damage: “There’s a human rights crisis unfolding in Gaza right now, and the EU has leverage over Israel that it can use to end that tragedy,” Flynn said. Failure to suspend the EEIA would, in his view, both prolong the conflict and undermine the EU’s moral authority. “If the EU cannot assume that role, and honor its own agreements to take action to ensure respect for human rights, then who else will?”
Double standard: Given that the EU suspended similar agreements with Syria, Zimbabwe and Cambodia, inaction on Israel would ultimately “smack of cynicism and hypocrisy,” Flynn added. He said the legal consequence would be no less than the “unraveling of the international order” that the EU professes to uphold. Assuming that order hasn’t already thoroughly unraveled.
ASSESSING EUROPE’S DIPLOMATIC RELEVANCE: Playbook also caught up with Francesco Talò, Italy’s former ambassador to Israel, to gauge his reaction to the EU’s attempts to help resolve the recent Iran-Israel-U.S. conflagration, which exposed European leaders as toothless when Trump bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Limited usefulness: “When it’s a time of war, the EU usually has less tools,” said Talò. Instead, he ventured, the EU is better placed to influence long-term peace projects — such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, a putative plan to build an economic commonwealth stretching from Asia to Europe, and for which Talò is Rome’s special envoy.
Builder, not a fighter: In a time of peace, Talò said, the bloc could support the development of broader data connectivity and extensive rail links to reduce the threat of “choke points” like the Strait of Hormuz, the major oil trade artery that Iran repeatedly threatened to block access to over the weekend. “Europe can be a protagonist,” he said — but perhaps leave the war diplomacy to those with hard power.
THE WORLD COUGHS, NATO WHEEZES
TRUMP TRAUMA AVERTED: NATO members agreed to boost their defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product by 2035, after a carefully choreographed summit that was designed, above all, to avoid antagonizing Donald Trump. It mostly went off without a hitch, as my colleagues Victor Jack, Chris Lunday and Laura Kayali report.
Nobody’s perfect: Of course, there were some snaggles, especially as fiscally squeezed EU members sought ways to hit the eye-watering target without carrying out politically toxic cuts to public services. Spain drew condemnation from Washington for insisting on wording that excluded it from the new obligations.
DO I HAVE A BRIDGE TO SELL YOU … Italy, as usual, is trying to play both sides, as Giorgia Meloni struggles to justify bigger defense outlays amid growing anti-war sentiment and anger over underfunded public services. Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani floated the idea of reclassifying a long-in-the-works bridge linking Sicily to the Italian mainland as critical defense-related infrastructure, which would allow Rome to include the exorbitant cost in defense spending calculations. Italian officials tell Playbook the idea is still floating around.
To be sure … there has yet to be any formal discussion of the bridge idea, nor has it been subjected to any rigorous technical analysis. “There’s a reasonable fear that this could be seen as too much of a stretch,” said an official with knowledge of the matter, adding that further discussions will likely be held soon to “see how feasible this feels.”
Nothing new: But it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, either. Italy is no stranger to financial wheezes and is already saying it’ll hit 2 percent of GDP this year after reclassifying other civil expenditures under defense. Pitching the estimated €13.5 billion bridge as a way to bolster “military mobility” as part of the 1.5 percent of GDP allotted by NATO for security expenses could prove a lifeline — if it passes muster with the alliance.
Mixed reaction: “Do you really believe that NATO would buy the story of the strategic relevance of the bridge?” wondered one official via text, appending a pithy “😂.”
Politically convenient: The move would also boost far-right League leader and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini, for whom the bridge is a signature policy that would benefit from an influx of NATO-sanctioned taxpayer money. It could also help him overcome the bureaucratic obstacles that have so far stymied construction. The fractious junior coalition partner faces significant skepticism over the project, both internally and externally — after all, Italian leaders have been talking about the “ponte sullo stretto” since the days of the Punic Wars.
GREENWASH WASHOUT
WEBER REMAINS DEFIANT: The debate surrounding the end of the EU’s anti-greenwashing directive could seriously wound Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s progressive coalition. But Manfred Weber, leader of the powerful center-right European People’s Party, refuses to back down — despite the looming institutional crisis. “The debate is absurd,” Weber told POLITICO. “As soon as we raise substantive issues, the left reflexively accuses us of cooperating with the far right.”
Crisis mood in Parliament: After the Commission announced on Friday that it would withdraw the Green Claims Directive, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Renew groups threatened to pull out of the von der Leyen coalition. That’s left the Commission chief even more dependent on a far-right grouping that’s often at odds with her core interests, as Max Griera reports in this must-read.
Right on cue: The FT reports this morning that MEPs from the European Conservatives and Reformists group reckon they’ve got enough support to put up a motion demanding the Commission’s resignation over Pfizergate (though not enough to actually topple von der Leyen). ECR Vice Chair Gheorghe Piperea told the FT he would put forward the motion today after gathering more than the necessary 72 signatures.
WEBER GOES ON THE OFFENSIVE: “The precondition for constructive cooperation is realism — it’s about finding the best solution, not party tactics or ideology,” Weber said. He stuck to his criticism of the green rules — which would force companies to back up environmental claims with verifiable evidence — saying: “The idea that companies will in the future have to get approval before using ecological advertising is grotesque — bureaucratic madness — and I will not support it.”
Commission U-turn: The Commission has since reversed its position and now does not plan to withdraw the directive, raising doubts about its communication strategy. But since Italy has already withdrawn its support and no parliamentary majority is in sight, the directive’s end is likely a foregone conclusion. Karl Mathiesen has this essential primer.
SOCIALISTS MEET WITH VDL AMID POLITICAL TURMOIL: S&D Chair Iratxe García met with von der Leyen on Wednesday to discuss the greenwashing farrago. An S&D spokesperson said García asked for “a clear, real, and public commitment to the [centrist] platform” and work program agreed after last year’s EU election. The deadline for that public commitment is von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech in the fall, when she is expected to present her priorities for 2026. “Either the platform moves at full speed, or we step out,” the spokesperson said.
HUNGARY PRIDE
HUNGARY WARNS EU COUNTRIES NOT TO JOIN BUDAPEST PRIDE: Ahead of the Budapest Pride parade on Saturday, Hungary’s Justice Minister Bence Tuzson sent a letter to several embassies, obtained by POLITICO, saying Budapest Pride is banned, organizing the event is punishable by imprisonment and participating in it is illegal.
The minister’s letter came after several embassies, including those of 21 EU countries, signed a joint statement on Tuesday in support of the event. “Kindly ensure that your co-workers and colleagues are duly informed of these facts, in order to maintain clarity,” Tuzson’s letter said.
VDL vs. Orbán: Ursula von der Leyen publicly backed Budapest Pride on Wednesday evening after weeks of silence, in a direct challenge to Orbán. “I call on the Hungarian authorities to allow the Budapest Pride to go ahead,” the Commission president said in a video statement, adding “to the LGBTIQ+ community in Hungary and beyond: I will always be your ally.”
Orbán responded with a post on X demanding that Brussels “refrain from interfering in the law enforcement affairs of Member States.”
Foreign politicians expected: More than 70 MEPs, including the chairs of the Socialist, liberal and Green groups, are expected to join the parade, along with Spain’s Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun, Dutch Education Minister Eppo Bruins, former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and former Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
Reminder: In March, Viktor Orbán’s government banned LGBTQ+ assemblies, claiming that they could be dangerous to children. However, because events organized by municipalities are exempt from the requirement for police approval, Budapest’s Mayor, Gergely Karácsony, said the event could proceed under the city council’s authority.
IN OTHER NEWS
BAYROU DODGES A BULLET: Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will not vote for a motion of censure against French Prime Minister François Bayrou. The center-left Socialist Party said it would bring the motion to a vote after pension reform talks between employers and unions broke down on Tuesday — potentially threatening to bring down the centrist government yet again. But, without the support of the far right, Bayrou’s shaky coalition looks like it will live to fight another day.
A reprieve, not a pardon: It still won’t be smooth sailing for the French prime minister. “The time for censure will come in the fall, during budget season,” National Rally Vice President Sébastien Chenu said in an interview with France Inter. “His time will come.”
Lurking in the background … is France’s €3.4 trillion pile of debt, which looks increasingly unstable after a previous bout of political instability sent bond yields sharply upward. The pensions reform was passed precisely to get the country’s finances under control, but further efforts to clean up the national books will be difficult while this volatile political situation endures.
POLAND MOVES TO WITHDRAW FROM MINE TREATY: Poland’s Sejm on Wednesday passed a law to authorize the president to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, which bans anti-personnel mines. The move comes in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland have also moved to exit the treaty. WNP has a write-up.