Mitsotakis: We will allocate over 2 billion euros in the coming months to support citizens’ income
In an interview with ERT News on Tuesday the PM was asked about the high cost of living and replied: “There is a problem in the country. I have said it many times, I have recognized it. Especially for our fellow citizens who pay a rent, things are very difficult. But we must recognize at the same time that this is a global phenomenon.” “We will allocate more than 2 billion euros in the coming months to support disposable income,” Mitsotakis announced.
Government weighs option of moving elections up to late 2026
Greece’s political landscape is clouded by uncertainty as debate intensifies over whether national elections should be moved up to late 2026. Although the government maintains that polls will be held in the spring of 2027, officials acknowledge that the country’s assumption of the EU presidency in the second half of 2027 may require an earlier vote to ensure a stable government beforehand.
Contract for the fourth Belharra (FDI HN) frigate of the Hellenic Navy signed
The 1st amendment to contracts 16B/21 and 17B/21, which concern the supply of a 4th FDI HN Standard 2++ frigate and the subsequent support services with the company NAVAL Group, was signed by the Director General of the General Directorate for Defence Investments and Armaments, Major General Ioannis Bouras.
Greece’s economy will continue to grow in 2025-2027
Greece’s economy will continue to grow at a rate of 2.1% of GDP in 2025, 2.2% in 2026 and 1.7% in 2027, according to the European Commission’s autumn economic forecasts released on Monday.
https://www.amna.gr/en/article/949303/Greeces-economy-will-continue-to-grow-in-2025-2027
ATHEX: Decline for benchmark and turnover
Despite the latest sovereign credit rating upgrade (one notch higher by Fitch), Greece’s stock market presented a mixed picture on Monday, with the benchmark losing some ground, banks ending virtually unchanged, falling stocks outnumbering rising ones only marginally, and the day’s turnover falling to its lowest level of the last 10 weeks. The session also marked the conclusion of the public offering by Euronext for Hellenic Exchanges and all signs point to its success.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1287073/athex-decline-for-benchmark-and-turnover
KATHIMERINI: Co-production of sea drones with Ukraine
TA NEA: Telephone scams: “Careful, grandma, radars are monitoring you”
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: The government will leave farmers unpaid in the Christmas period
RIZOSPASTIS: The large anti-imperialistic rally was a call for organization and subversion
KONTRA NEWS: Government polls see Tsipras polling at 15,5%
DIMOKRATIA: War rant by the Germans
NAFTEMPORIKI: Flows worth 60,6 bln for the financing of investments
DRIVING THE DAY: PAIN IN THE ASSETS
ONE MONTH TO SAVE UKRAINE: European leaders will fly into Brussels on Dec. 18 for the final European Council summit of 2025. The stakes could not be higher: They must find a way forward on thorny proposals to ensure Ukraine doesn’t run out of money midway through next year — jeopardizing its security and its very existence.
Bad memories: Kyiv’s allies are hoping to avoid a repeat of October’s EUCO when Belgium objected to plans to use a colossal €140 billion of frozen Russian assets to underwrite a reparations loan, citing legal fears. Diplomats have since fumed at the Commission for having failed to respond to the concerns ahead of time. On Monday, in a letter obtained by POLITICO, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned capitals that the alternative to the move is costly national or EU borrowing, and urged them to agree a way forward.
Tick tock: “It will now be key to rapidly reach a clear commitment on how to ensure that the necessary financing for Ukraine will be agreed at the next European Council meeting in December,” von der Leyen wrote. “Taking this forward will allow us to maintain pressure on Russia, deny it the hope of victory, and lay the foundations for the suspension of hostilities and the groundwork for long-awaited peace negotiations.” The Danish Council presidency and other partners will have to try to broker a deal before the summit next month.
Will it work? “If you want to have a decision at EUCO then we [the EU] have to have our homework done now,” a senior Belgian official told Playbook. The country hosts the vast majority of Russia’s immobilized funds and is concerned about both litigation and retaliation from Moscow; it wants the EU to share the risks equally. However, the official said, while “everyone wants a solution” and to “avoid a repeat” of October’s impasse, “we’re not going to give an OK as long as we don’t know in detail what we’re talking about.”
It’s not just Belgium: Other countries are increasingly critical of the Berlaymont’s failure to put forward a concrete proposal, instead having focused on trying to convince them that the Russian assets plan is the best of a bunch of bad options. “There is no realistic option here except for using frozen assets,” said one diplomat from a Central European country. “The Commission should stop wasting time and put more details about the proposals to the member states, so they know what they are supporting.”
Get on with it: Speaking to Playbook, Ukraine’s EU ambassador, Vsevolod Chentsov, said “a swift agreement on the reparations loan is essential” and will provide predictable funding from early 2026 without costing taxpayers. “EU involvement is crucial, because only the Union can deliver the scale, predictability and coordination needed to keep Ukraine stable — and a stable Ukraine strengthens the resilience and security of the entire EU.”
Not us: Meanwhile, Kyiv’s supporters will have to work out how to present a united front and get a majority for the policy, particularly given any reliance on national borrowing would likely require countries to opt in. Budapest “is not prepared to approve any decision that puts additional legal liability or financial obligation on the Hungarian government to guarantee payments to Ukraine,” Hungary’s Europe Minister János Bóka told my colleague Gregorio Sorgi.
Finnish line: Speaking in an interview with Playbook’s Nick Vinocur in Brussels on Monday,Finnish President Alexander Stubb said the EU could ultimately have to settle for a “combination” of the three options under consideration: using Russian assets, combined with both national and EU borrowing. “But that’s for the European Council to decide. And of course for Belgium itself,” he added.
MEANWHILE, IN THE WHITE HOUSE: Donald Trump once again indicated he’d be on board with sanctioning Russia, as long as he retains ultimate decision-making authority. Reuters has the write-up.
DEFENDING EUROPE
CLOSE TO HOME: A Romanian border village was evacuated on Monday after Russian drones targeted a gas tanker on the river Danube, sparking fears of an explosion that could wreak devastation on EU and NATO soil. Meanwhile, a railway line linking Warsaw to eastern Poland and on to Ukraine was destroyed in “an act of sabotage,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. More from Wojciech Kość on that here.
Money matters (again): The case for Europe’s rearmament may be getting stronger every day, but the question of how to deliver it still looms large. The EU’s flagship SAFE arms manufacturing initiative is now at the center of a post-Brexit row, my colleague Jacopo Barigazzi writes in to report, with Brussels considering charging the U.K. between €4.5 billion and €6.5 billion to access the scheme.
Too steep? According to Peter Ricketts, a former British diplomat who chairs the House of Lords’ Europe committee, the proposed fee “is so off the scale that it suggests some EU members don’t want U.K. in the scheme,” despite its sizeable military industry. According to a Commission spokesperson, the costs “will reflect the benefits the U.K gains from its participation.” More here.
DOUBLE INTELLIGENCE: Meanwhile, yet another showdown is brewing between von der Leyen and the EU’s top diplomat after the Commission moved to set up its own intelligence cell designed to coordinate information and responses to hybrid threats. Kaja Kallas, whose diplomatic service already hosts its own EU Intelligence and Situation Centre (INTCEN), told lawmakers on Monday that when “we don’t have enough budget,” it makes little sense to “duplicate and create something new.”
Hitting back: However, her insistence that the INTCEN unit under her control has good people working for it and should be expanded instead of replaced has been met with skepticism. “Kallas’ predecessor, Josep Borrell, was very clear about the problems in the EEAS — and that the information he was getting in briefings was the same as he had read in the newspapers two weeks before,” one Commission official told Playbook.
E3 GETS TOGETHER: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will sit down for a private dinner tonight in Berlin as part of a previously unannounced engagement, officials confirmed to POLITICO. Likely topics include support for Ukraine and defense cooperation across the continent.
WORLD WAR I? NOT ANY MORE: The brutal trench warfare unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has repeatedly been compared to the static battlefields of the first world war. But, advances in drones and small-unit tactics have turned the east and south of the country into something very different: a merciless kill zone.
“Drones are now able to sit in ambush, intercept enemy logistics and disrupt supplies. They have also made it more difficult to maintain positions: if you are detected, every weapon in the area will immediately rush to destroy you,” Colonel Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the President’s Office of Ukraine and a former battlefield commander, told our Kyiv correspondent, Veronika Melkozerova, in this stark portrait of a modern conflict, out today.
ENLARGEMENT
EU’S NEW MEMBER STRATEGY: Top politicians from EU candidate countries are in town today for an Enlargement Forum designed to build momentum for continued expansion to include states in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans. But questions are growing over whether the latest tranche of countries will join the bloc on the same basis as previous ones.
Treaty overhaul? Marta Kos, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, will give the keynote at today’s summit, pledging that broadening membership will help “push back against forces that aim to destabilize our continent,” according to a draft speech seen by Playbook. However, she is expected to say, “We need to have an open discussion about what kind of safeguards we will write into future accession treaties to assure our citizens that the integrity of our Union is protected.”
Keeping an eye: The idea of strengthening the legal basis on which new countries like Montenegro, Albania or Moldova join the EU has been floated by officials and diplomats in recent months. It is designed as a way to ensure they don’t backslide on human rights and democracy under future governments, leaving the bloc with more awkward members amid a rising tide of populism that threatens policymaking.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you: The safeguards, Kos is set to say, should “go unnoticed to our new member states, when everyone respects their responsibilities,” meaning that citizens can benefit from the EU when their governments live up to fundamental obligations. “But they must equally be safeguards that can bite hard, when new member states do not respect those same rules.”
CLIMATE CORNER
AX TO GRIND: Despite continuing to pump out planet-harming pollution of its own, the Chinese Communist Party is wasting little time accusing the West of hypocrisy over climate change. In a rare interview, Beijing’s climate envoy for COP30 talks in Brazil told my colleague Zia Weise that new, looser EU emissions targets are “not so good” for the fight for the future of the planet.
Who’s the hypocrite? Experts warn that China itself is not doing enough to cut carbon, accounting for 30 percent of global pollution — compared to just 6 percent coming from the EU. More on that here.
DENMARK UNVEILS NEW CLIMATE TARGET: Danish Climate Minister Lars Aagaard on Monday said Copenhagen was setting the most ambitious 2035 emissions-cutting target of any developed country.
Denmark now aims to reduce its emissions by 82 percent below 1990 levels, up from 78 percent — just ahead of the U.K.’s 81 percent target. “It is crucial that we send a bold and clear signal in the times that we’re living in,” Aagaard said at a press conference at COP30. “Too much in this world is moving in the wrong direction.”
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
MOZAMBIQUE MASSACRE: The European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, a Berlin-based NGO, has filed a complaint with the offices of the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor, whose remit includes war crimes, against energy giant TotalEnergies, accusing the firm of complicity in war crimes and torture. Alex Perry has the details.
Background: The move comes after POLITICO last year reported around 200 men were murdered or disappeared in a container site at the French firm’s natural gas plant under construction in Mozambique.
U.N. BACKS TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN: The U.N. Security Council last night approved the U.S. plan for an international peacekeeping force in Gaza. But Hamas rejected the resolution, saying in a statement that it “does not meet the level of our Palestinian people’s political and humanitarian demands and rights.”
IN OTHER NEWS
ECB TOP JOB RACE: The race is on to succeed Christine Lagarde at the European Central Bank, and Spain and Germany are gunning for the top job, reports Johanna Treeck.
USE YOUR POWER: Fresh from its victory in forcing the Commission to make concessions on the EU’s long-term budget, the European Parliament should show it’s willing to block more proposals in the future to get a better deal, writes Domènec Ruiz Devesa, an arch Euro-federalist and former Spanish socialist MEP, in this op-ed.
D-DAY FOR DANES: One of the EU’s few prominent center-left politicians, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, faces a tough test today in local elections being held in Copenhagen and cities across the country. Aitor Hernández-Morales has more on how housing costs have put her Social Democrats in jeopardy in their historic urban strongholds.
NEIN TO PENSIONER PERKS? German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is facing a rebellion from his own center-right allies over criticism from younger lawmakers that his pension reform plans aren’t generationally fair and promise too much to older people. Merz’s coalition has a majority of just 12 votes in the Bundestag — and 18 of his MPs oppose the plans. Nette Nöstlinger has the story.