President Tassoulas: Solidarity, stability, and international esteem will help Greece meet all challenges
President of the Hellenic Republic Constantine Tassoulas conveyed a message of unity during his address at the annual reception for the restoration of democracy, now in its 51st anniversary, on Thursday.
Greece concerned over Turkish Eurofighters’ weapon systems
According to sources from the Ministry of Defense, Greece is in ongoing communication with the United Kingdom and Germany regarding the weapons systems that Turkish Eurofighters may be equipped with. Earlier this week, Turkey reached an agreement with Germany and the UK to purchase 40 Eurofighter jets in a deal worth $5.6 billion.
Judges’ union chides government over senior appointments
The Union of Judges and Prosecutors issued a tersely worded statement on Wednesday accusing the government of the “de facto annulment” of legislation allowing judges to put forward candidates for senior leadership roles after the cabinet announced its picks for the country’s top courts. These picks, according to insiders, excluded several top-ranked candidates from the advisory votes.
Athens Stock Exchange to be upgraded to developed market by S&P in September 2026
In September 2026, the Standard & Poor’s places the upgrade of the Athens Stock Exchange to the “developed” markets. As the international rating agency notes, the prospects of the Greek economy are positive, achieving stable economic growth after the debt crisis, through reforms and cooperation with the European Union, the ECB and the IMF.
ATHEX: Cautious step higher for bourse index
The main index of the local bourse showed on Thursday it is not yet ready to clear the 2,000-point bar, as its course during the day, albeit constantly positive, showed sellers increase as it approached that psychological milestone. Even so, the growth of banks stocks, led by National, sufficed to keep the indexes of the market in the black, while S&P pointed to upgrading Athinon Avenue to a developed market from September 2026.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1276317/athex-cautious-step-higher-for-bourse-index
KATHIMERINI: Military reservists increase by 6,000 every year
TA NEA: University entry thresholds 2025: small surprises with fluctuations
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Gaza strip: Not alive nor dead
RIZOSPASTIS: Government and shipowners are sending seamen to war zones
KONTRA NEWS: Bold changes in the Armed Forces
DIMOKRATIA: Changes in the Armed Forces
NAFTEMPORIKI: Structural threat for investments
DRIVING THE DAY: GAZA TIPPING POINT
HAPPENING TODAY: European leaders will hold talks on how to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would convene an “emergency call” with his E3 partners France and Germany to “discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need.”
Tough talk: In his strongest statement on Gaza yet, Starmer said “the suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible,” and called statehood “the inalienable right of the Palestinian people.”
Paris weighs in: That came hours after French President Emmanuel Macron made a surprise announcement Thursday, saying he would recognize Palestine as a state at a meeting of the United Nations in September. “The urgency today is to end the war in Gaza and to provide aid to the civilian population,” Macron said. Write-up here.
Support from Madrid and Dublin: “I welcome France joining Spain and other European countries in recognizing the State of Palestine,” Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said. “Together, we must protect what Netanyahu is trying to destroy. The two-state solution is the only solution.” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris called Macron’s step an “important contribution.”
WHERE THE E3 STAND: Starmer is under pressure from his own MPs to follow Macron’s lead and announce he’ll recognize Palestine, my colleague Noah Keate reports from London. But the German government fears recognizing Palestine could make the crisis worse.
Meanwhile, in Rome: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday called the situation in Gaza “dramatic” and said “no military action can justify attacks against civilians.” She added: “We are all committed to ensuring that hostilities cease and that a serious process toward the two-state situation can be restarted.”
PATIENCE WEARING THIN: All this points to increasing concern among European leaders about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and a hardening attitude toward Israel. The pressure to do something is likely to keep building, as politicians face calls from their constituencies to take action. As Rory O’Neill reports today, NGOs are ramping up calls for EU leaders to impose sanctions unless Israel allows aid to flow. “Tweets don’t feed people,” one said. “Statements don’t open aid crossings.”
ISRAEL FURIOUS: “Macron’s announcement of his intention to recognize a Palestinian state is a disgrace and a surrender to terrorism, granting a reward and encouragement to the murderers and rapists of Hamas, who carried out the most horrific massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
WASHINGTON FURIOUS: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington “strongly rejects” Macron’s move, calling it “a slap in the face” to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. “This reckless decision only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace,” Rubio wrote on X.
American withdrawal: Earlier on Thursday, the U.S. said it would pull out of talks for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Felicia Schwartz reports. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, who was in Europe this week for talks, said Hamas is uninterested in peace and “does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith.”
HAPPENING NEXT WEEK: Macron’s post on Thursday came ahead of a U.N. ministerial-level conference on the two-state solution, to be co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia in New York on July 28-29. Paris expects more than 40 foreign ministers to be there, despite Trump administration pressure discouraging attendance. Germany’s Johann Wadephul is not expected to take part.
The idea is to mobilize countries ahead of a second summit in September on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where the goal will be to recognize the state of Palestine.
TRANSATLANTIC TRAUMA
TRUMP TENSIONS: Like it or not, the EU-U.S. relationship is going to be front and center again in the coming days. Three diplomats and one Commission official confirmed to me and Koen Verhelst that they expect Donald Trump to announce “imminently” whether he will accept a trade deal with the EU, or hit it with 30 percent tariffs next week as planned.
Scoop: Meanwhile, tensions are heating up between the bloc and MAGA world over regulation of online platforms. Over the weekend, Republican Congressman Jim Jordan — a top Trump ally — will lead a delegation to Europe, including a stop in Brussels, to discuss “censorship” and “free speech,” a source familiar with the planning told Eliza Gkritsi.
Tech tussle: The news comes as the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs, releases a report today on “the foreign censorship threat.” A leaked version seen by Eliza blasts the EU’s Digital Services Act, which imposes requirements on tech companies to moderate harmful online content, claiming it “infringes upon Americans’ First Amendment right to engage in free and open debate in the modern town square.”
NOW READ THIS: Trump himself is heading to Scotland today to, among other important engagements, visit his golf courses. Paul Dallison has this piece on taxpayer-funded toilets, Jeffrey Epstein and the president’s hobby of choice. (Paul also wrote this week’s Declassified humor column, on Trump, Putin and Ozzy Osbourne’s deals with the devil.)
ASIA TRIP WRAP
IT’S ALL ABOUT DONALD: The EU’s top leadership is flying back this morning from a charm offensive in east Asia, shaking hands in Japan and China. But while Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa want to use the diplomatic outreach to show Europe is moving on from its increasingly toxic relationship with the U.S., Trump is still clearly on their minds.
Work with us: “Unlike other major markets, Europe keeps its market open to Chinese goods,” a seemingly weary von der Leyen said at a press conference in Beijing Thursday, taking an overt swipe at Trump’s trade wars and calling on China to play fair on subsidies and critical raw materials controls. “The need to rebalance our relationship is even more urgent in today’s context of the global rise of tariffs,” she added.
Who could they possibly mean? A joint statement signed by the two sides called on “major economies [to] maintain policy continuity and stability,” while also tackling climate change after Trump’s pullout from international agreements. As part of its bid to demonstrate leadership, the Commission president said the Brussels-Beijing pairing could “set a global benchmark” on protecting the planet. More on that here.
But VDL is under fire for not pushing for more concessions: “If this is being done to spite the Americans, I have a hard time understanding how it works,” former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, one of the strongest advocates of taking a tougher line against Beijing before leaving office last year, told Playbook.
“We are dealing with a country that is fueling the war in Europe … And we’re going there waving the white flag and saying ‘well, let’s talk about climate.’ It doesn’t look serious, and I don’t think anyone in Beijing is taking us seriously,” Landsbergis said.
Trouble ahead: The question of China’s material support for Russia was noticeably absent from Chinese readouts, despite being raised by both Costa and von der Leyen. “Beijing shows no acknowledgement or appreciation of Brussels’ concerns,” Mingda Qiu, an analyst at the Eurasia Group consulting firm, told our resident China expert Jordyn Dahl. “The EU side will likely [have to] impose more sanctions on China based on its relations with Russia.”
War profiteers: Last week, the EU sanctioned two regional Chinese banks for processing funds flowing to Russia. “All of the payments with the Russian counterparts are cleared as they used to be. We don’t see any sign that the sanctions change the behavior,” said Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
Holding the pen: Analysts also raised eyebrows at language that appeared to have been directly dictated by Beijing, putting all references to China before the EU and announcing that “green is the defining color of China-EU cooperation” — typical Communist Party imagery. “I think there’s a lot of Beijing’s fingerprints on the statement,” said Byford Tsang, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Papa, c’est toi? While Brussels is under pressure to diversify its relations away from reliance on Washington, officials are under fire for not doing so more assertively. “It’s a chronic disease of looking for a ‘daddy,’ to paraphrase Mark Rutte,” said Landsbergis. “For defense we’re looking at the U.S., for trade it’s China. It’s like Europe is not trying to figure out its own strength.”
ENLARGEMENT ENTANGLEMENT
BOSNIA HURTS-TO-GOVERN-A: The EU’s efforts to cement ties in the Western Balkans appear to be coming unstuck, after Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos gave Bosnia until Aug. 11 to adopt Brussels’ cash-for-change plan for the region, known as the Reform Agenda. Yet in Bosnia that means getting three entrenched ethnic power blocs to see eye to eye — a feat some in the Commission keep mistaking for a matter of simple paperwork.
But Kos seems eager to prove the deadline isn’t just a polite suggestion, having notified Sarajevo that €108 million — roughly 10 percent of the pot for Bosnia — have already been taken away for good due to previous delays, and the rest will vanish as the timer runs to zero.
On the agenda: My colleague Una Hajdari obtained a leaked copy of the plan as it stands. The headline grabbers? After 30 years of politics-by-identity, the EU wants to scrap ethnic vetoes in state level bodies and give the Constitutional Court a makeover — that’s the body keeping Vladimir Putin’s Balkan bestie, Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik, in check.
Hourglass: However, even with the EU’s best intentions, it seems the Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs still find political deadlock a sweeter deal. “The topic of EU integration will inevitably fall victim to the internal frictions between the political parties in the country,” Srđan Blagovčanin, from the Center for Governance Studies, told Una. “The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is like a quicksand, which the EU has sunk into and cannot get itself out of.”
Brussels is unsympathetic: “They have had plenty of time to be able to get this done,” one official told Playbook. “Ultimately, if they want to secure support as a candidate state and get the most of the EU financial support, they also have to do their job.”
IN OTHER NEWS
SAFE PAIR OF HANDS: At least 20 countries will take up €100 billion of cheap loans from the Commission to spend on defense, Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius claimed on X. As Tuesday’s deadline to request the loans nears, the Lithuanian commissioner is already claiming victory.
Come get your cash: Kubilius and Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis urged EU countries to use the SAFE scheme as a workaround to deliver aid to Ukraine and boost its military sector. This offer was meant to appeal to Kyiv’s allies on the EU’s Eastern flank and affluent Nordic countries who could have otherwise turned down Brussels’ cheap loans.
TOO MUCH MONEY? Relaxing rules governing public spending in a bid to boost the economy could end up backfiring and costing companies, according to former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti — who served as competition and industry commissioner from 1999 to 2004. Read the story here.
ZELENSKYY U-TURNS: After facing street protests and unprecedented warnings from EU allies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought to reassure critics worried about a new law that stripped the country’s anti-corruption bodies of their independence. On Thursday, he introduced a new bill to undo the changes, saying he’d “heard the public opinion.” The bill still needs to pass the national parliament. Full details by Yurii Stasiuk.
IRAN TALKS IN ISTANBUL TODAY: Europe’s leaders are meeting with their Iranian counterparts for nuclear talks in Istanbul today. In an op-ed for POLITICO, Sahil V. Shah and Nathalie Tocci write: “Having helped forge the Iran nuclear deal, the bloc must decide if it will once again take the diplomatic lead or be swayed by the illusion that might makes right.”