Cost of restoring the damage from storms ‘Daniel’ and ‘Elias’ will exceed 3.0 billion, Mitsotakis says
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday attended an event presenting the works for restoring the damage from the destructive 2023 storms ‘Daniel’ and ‘Elias’ at the Mouzaki Municipal Cinema Theatre. In a speech, he thanked the regional and municipal local authorities and all residents of Thessaly for their patience, stoicism and their determination to repair the “great destruction we all experienced”.
PM Mitsotakis inaugurates new sections of the E65 motorway, highlighting the project’s significance
Prime Minister Mitsotakis on Tuesday morning attended a special event organised near the tunnel of Orthris, ahead of the delivery on Tuesday afternoon of the two remaining sections of the E65 motorway traversing Central Greece. He was briefed by Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Staikouras on the technical features of the project, as well as on the timetable for the construction of the last 46-kilometre section from Kalambaka to the Egnatia Odos motorway.
African dust creates otherworldly atmosphere
Athens and southern parts of the country were again enveloped in Saharan dust on Tuesday, with hues of yellow and orange creating an otherworldly atmosphere.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/environment/1237153/african-dust-creates-otherworldly-atmosphere
Inner workings of hooligans revealed
The case file put together by the police Sub-Division for the Prevention of Sports Violence against the participants in the incidents that led to the death of 31-year-old policeman Giorgos Lyngeridis outside a volleyball stadium in Athens last December has shed light on the way the Olympiakos club hooligans orchestrated the attack, the internal hierarchy of Gate 7 organized fans and their relationship with the management of the team.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1237165/inner-workings-of-hooligans-revealed
Two businesspeople vie for leadership of Greek business federation
Two prominent members of the Greek business community have announced their candidacy for the leadership of the Greek business federation SEV.
ATHEX: Benchmark reaches new 13-year high
The benchmark of the Greek stock market on Tuesday built on the momentum from the previous sessions and climbed to a new 13-year high. Far from being concerned about the European elections or the domestic politics and finance, traders are keeping an eye on prospective mergers and acquisitions, while the anticipation and excitement sent the daily turnover soaring.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1237168/athex-benchmark-reaches-new-13-year-high
KATHIMERINI: The mysteries of the dust that covered the sky
TA NEA: Defense Ministry: free housing program’s provisions
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Consumers are being… grilled
AVGI: The government desecrated the Olympic Ideal as well
RIZOSPASTIS: Tax-heist and price hikes are fueling the profits of large business groups
KONTRA NEWS: Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) blocked 1.506.475 bank accounts
DIMOKRATIA: Outburst by New Democracy MP Kallianos due to the poor services of a state hospital
NAFTEMPORIKI: The secrets to the “haircut” of tax-fines
FAR-RIGHT SPYING SCANDAL
NI HAO KRAH: MEP Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s top candidate for the June European Parliament election, is under massive pressure from his party leadership to end his campaign today. It comes after the bombshell arrest of his aide, who stands accused of spying for China’s totalitarian security apparatus.
ICYMI: German police on Tuesday arrested Krah’s long-time collaborator and parliamentary assistant, Jian Guo.“Jian G. is an employee of a Chinese secret service,” the German public prosecutor alleged in a statement.
Implications: Germany’s far-right AfD — which was expected to make big gains in the EU election — already stood accused of being backed by agents of the Russian and Chinese dictatorships seeking to undermine Western democracies. It will be much harder for the party to dismiss that criticism now.
AfD, the Alternative for Dictators: The AfD’s two top candidates for the EU election, Krah and Petr Bystron, are both at the center of investigations over foreign interference. The FBI has questioned Krah over alleged payments from sources close to the Kremlin. Bystron, the No. 2 on the AfD’s list for the EU election, stands accused of having received €20,000 from people with links to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. While he denies the accusations, Spiegel on Tuesday reported on a recording in which Bystron talks about the cash.
PRESSURE MOUNTING: Last night, Krah was summoned to Berlin. Journalists spotted the MEP having dinner at Brasserie Le Paris on Kurfürstendamm — but AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla didn’t want to be seen at a table with him. Instead, as Chrupalla entertained a delegation in the next room, Krah dined with the party leaders’ aides, who, BILD reports, attempted to convince him that his position is untenable.
Crunch meeting this morning: Krah has been called to Chrupalla’s office in the Bundestag at 9 a.m., my Berlin Playbook colleagues report.
Campaign’s over — but Krah to remain AfD’s No. 1: The AfD leadership now has a massive problem. It’s not just that posters with Krah’s face on them are already on the streets. The party can no longer boot Krah or Bystron from running in the EU election, since the electoral list has already been submitted and signed off on. Changes are only allowed for extreme cases — such as death.
Now read this: A far-right takeover is the biggest threat to the future of Europe, according to a POLITICO survey of EU lawmakers. Check out what keeps MEPs up at night here, by Giovanna Coi.
MEANWHILE, IN PARLIAMENT
MEPS TO CONDEMN AfD OVER RUSSIA, CHINA SCANDALS: In Strasbourg, MEPs are drafting a resolution condemning the AfD and warning that Russia and China have penetrated deep into its ranks.
The opposite of patriots: “The AfD is once again showing its true, unpatriotic face. Anyone who votes AfD in the European elections is voting for more influence from Russia and China,” said MEP Daniel Caspary, from the EPP.
Own up: The Parliament “calls upon the AfD to publicly declare their financial relations especially with the Kremlin without delay and to publicly disclose the purpose and exact amount of all payments originating from Kremlin-linked sources,” reads the draft resolution, seen by my colleague Eddy Wax.
The problem: The resolution is non-legislative and will hardly do anything to help shine light on any illicit financial ties.
Darkness of their own making: Parliament, in large part led by the EPP, has opposed post-Qatargate initiatives for stricter legislation that would have forced MEPs to reveal their finances to an oversight body. The current rules allow MEPs to have extra incomes with no oversight. But why wouldn’t MEPs want more transparency on their side jobs and extra earnings? Read on …
PARLIAMENT QUIETLY REJECTS CALLS TO INVESTIGATE FERBER: The European Parliament has quietly rejected calls to investigate German conservative MEP Markus Ferber following my colleague Bjarke Smith-Meyer’s revelations about his relationship with Dutch businessman Michael Heijmeijer.
MEPs covering for MEPs: Parliament’s group leaders decided not to investigate Ferber — despite huge question marks around his activities and whether he took money from banks to advise them on an EU law he helped write.
So much for transparency: The decision was taken during Parliament’s Conference of Presidents last week — the closed-door meeting of political group chairs and Parliament President Roberta Metsola. The Parliament doesn’t comment on COP discussions and there’s no written record of the decision. However, two people who attended the meeting told POLITICO that the Parliament’s lawyers said an investigation into Ferber wasn’t necessary.
EPP THROWS SHADE AT GREENS OVER HARASSMENT: Meanwhile, the center-right group has put up an amendment to a report on harassment in the workplace — calling out the Greens for “double standards.” The amendment makes reference to the alleged harassment case of “former Green MEP, Malte Gallée” arguing “his group failed to report this case to the relevant internal EP committees and structures.”
CURIOUS EU ELECTION CHOICE: Over in Greece, the New Democracy party of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis chose Fredi Beleri, the jailed mayor-elect of the town of Himarë on the Albanian riviera, to run in the EU election. The ethnic Greek Beleri’s imprisonment is a cause célèbre in Greece, and tensions between Athens and Tirana over his detention now threaten to weigh on Albania’s push to join the EU, Nektaria Stamouli reports.
TRANSATLANTIC CORNER
US SENATE PASSES UKRAINE AID BILL: The U.S. Senate sent a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan to Joe Biden’s desk in the early hours of this morning. The legislation passed with bipartisan support, 79-18. Support was higher than in February, when the Senate voted on a similar deal 70-29.
What else was in the bill: A provision that would require TikTok’s parent company to either sell the social media app or face a ban, as well as a measure that permits selling off Russian oligarch assets, my U.S. colleagues report.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine: Russian forces made significant advances in the besieged town of Ocheretyne in eastern Ukraine as part of an offensive by Moscow to push forward before Western military aid reaches Kyiv. POLITICO’s Jamie Dettmer considers the implications of any delays.
Now read this — How Speaker Mike Johnson is taming Donald Trump and his party, by POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin.
But before you get too excited … Our transatlantic team of reporters took a look at what a potential Trump 2.0 presidency would mean for Europe. They report that a potential return of the former president poses an existential risk to European unity as the tensions over how to work with the U.S. could pull the Continent apart on issues ranging from trade policy to climate change.
And speaking of Trump: The former president’s hush money trial heard from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker on Tuesday. He testified that he agreed to promote positive stories about Trump and drag his opponents in the 2016 Republican primary in the notorious tabloid. Pecker said he also agreed to buy and bury stories that could harm Trump, my U.S. colleague James Romoser reports.
CAN EUROPE COMPETE WITH THE US? Meanwhile, POLITICO’s Kathryn Carlson got her hands on a draft of the French government-commissioned report into the EU’s capital markets union. “Substantial” extra investment is needed to close the EU’s “widening economic gap with the United States,” and Europe “can no longer defer” the deepening of its capital markets to achieve this, says the document, which will be presented by France’s former central bank head Christian Noyer later this week.
**As the European elections approach, city leaders at Eurocities 2024 in Cluj-Napoca will set the agenda on innovation, sustainability, and inclusion, while tackling democracy and investment challenges, from 29-31 May. Discover more. #LocalFutureEU**
IN OTHER NEWS
ITALY’S CABINET APPROVES AI LAW: Italy’s Cabinet approved a law on AI late last night, meaning the country is likely to be the first in Europe to legislate on the topic, Hannah Roberts writes in to report. It comes after two men used the technology to make deepfake porn of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Criminal penalties: Meloni’s office said in a press release: “The unlawful dissemination of content generated or manipulated with artificial intelligence systems, designed to mislead as to its genuineness, is punished with a sentence of one to five years’ imprisonment if unjust damage results from the act.”
Governance and copyright: The draft law, which does not overlap with the European Regulation on Artificial Intelligence, covers governance, copyright protection and criminal penalties, making it an aggravating circumstance if AI is used to interfere in elections. Defense and national security operators are exempt from the regulations.
EU PARLIAMENT PASSES LAW TO BAN FORCED LABOR PRODUCTS: MEPs on Tuesday gave their final approval to an EU law banning products made with forced labor, a measure largely targeting China. More here.
Proof is in the enforcement: The U.S. has a law that targets products from the Xinjiang province, where Beijing has locked more than 1 million people of the Uyghur and Kazakh minorities in internment camps. But solar panel factories in the region don’t admit inspectors. “We can activate a non-cooperation clause. This is not only for China but also Turkmenistan, where forced labor is imposed by the state,” said MEP Maria Manuel Leitão Marques.
AUDITORS SLAP TURKEY DEAL: Turkey’s poor human rights record and economic factors are undermining the EU’s 2016 migration deal with the country, the European Court of Auditors said in a report out this morning. Write-up here.
NORTH MACEDONIA ELECTION: Voters in North Macedonia head to the polls for the first round of presidential elections today, to be followed by a second round on May 8. Šejla Ahmatović reports that journalists accuse the country’s ruling party and opposition of banding together to restrict press freedom.
GERSHKOVICH APPEAL REJECTED: A Russian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich against his pre-trial detention on trumped-up spying charges.