Mitsotakis: The citizens demand a lot from us, they want fewer mistakes and more effort
“The citizens demand a lot from us, they want fewer mistakes and more effort, tangible results and not just promises,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday, starting a meeting of the New Democracy Parliamentary Group.
Kasselakis proposes independent audit of ND, SYRIZA finances in past 10 years
Main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Stefanos Kasselakis on Wednesday challenged Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to bring in an independent firm of chartered accountants to check the finances of both SYRIZA-PA and ruling ND going back 10 years, in a message on social media.
More turmoil in SYRIZA as three cadres quit party executive
Announcing their resignation in a public statement on Wednesday, Dionysis Temponeras, Antonis Kostakas and Haris Tsiokas expressed their opposition with recent comments by party leader Stefanos Kasselakis who hinted in a social media post that SYRIZA had benefited from shady funding sources under his predecessor, former prime minister Alexis Tsipras.
Prosecutor summons two more suspects to testify in wiretapping scandal
Two more suspects in the wiretapping scandal that targeted politicians, businessmen and media figures have been called to testify before a Supreme Court prosecutor. On Tuesday, Grigoris Dimitriadis, former general secretary and nephew of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, testified for two hours before a Supreme Court prosecutor on Tuesday over the scandal.
BoG: Economic policy should continue on the same path of reforms
Economic policy should continue on the same path of reforms, efficient use of available domestic and European resources and fiscal responsibility, according to the Report on Monetary Policy 2023-2024, submitted on Wednesday to the Greek Parliament.
ATHEX: Stocks slipping closer toward 1,400 points
The Greek stock market saw its decline from Tuesday accelerate on Wednesday, with banks and several other blue chips bringing the bourse’s benchmark close to the 1,400-point level. Uncertainty both domestically – as described by the Monetary Policy Report of the Bank of Greece – and abroad with the elections in France and the UK in the next few days are adding to traders’ reluctance to buy.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1242473/athex-stocks-slipping-closer-toward-1400-points
KATHIMERINI: Criticism by ruling party MPs: “The MInisters do not listen to us”
TA NEA: New Democracy: Explosions SYRIZA: Resignations PASOK: Agreements
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Revelation: New lethal train collision averted at the last moment
RIZOSPASTIS: Increase in the prices of hundreds of drugs of up to 357%!
KONTRA NEWS: New Democracy MP Salmas: “We are the government of oligarchs”
DIMOKRATIA: Outburst of New Democracy MPs against PM Mitsotakis
NAFTEMPORIKI: Alert regarding the real estate market
HAPPY THURSDAY. National leaders are meeting to finalize the EU’s top jobs in Brussels. We can expect to see white smoke from the Europa building today if everything goes to plan. We’ll bring you every grumpy entrance, every doorstep and every twist on our live blog.
FAILED COUP IN BOLIVIA: EU leaders condemned an unsuccessful attempt by the military to overthrow the Bolivian government in La Paz last night. “The European Union stands by democracies,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted.
TOBÉ OR NOT TOBÉ? That is the question facing Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson as he chews over his pick to be the country’s next commissioner. Local media reports EPP MEP Tomas Tobé is held in high regard. Other names in the mix include Moderate Party chief Karin Enström and Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard,as well as Foreign Minister Tobias Billström (though he said he was not available for the role). Hat tip to the EPP’s Pete Pakarinen for the pun.
ANOTHER BRAVE FACE IN THE BERLAYMONT: Didier Reynders was the latest European commissioner to talk about how overjoyed he is about returning to his old job after failing to get a better one elsewhere. “I am happy to be back,” he wrote on X, bringing to mind a similar post by Finnish Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen after she failed to become her country’s president.
Keeping it real: Competition chief Margrethe Vestager went for a more sober “I will resume my duties” after pulling out of the race to lead the European Investment Bank.
DRIVING THE DAY
MELONI FUMES AS EU LEADERS SHUT HER OUT: Is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni bluffing or is she about to slam the brakes on months of carefully cultivated relationship-building with Ursula von der Leyen?
Giorgia Melonely: The Italian PM whacked the EU in a speech ahead of her trip to Brussels for today’s European Council, describing it as “an invasive bureaucratic giant” and saying it’s “surreal” that the top jobs have been decided without taking the EU election result into account. Her hard-right ECR grouping gained seats and is now the third power in the European Parliament; she argues the EU’s top jobs should reflect that.
Don’t we Matter-ella? “You can’t disregard Italy,” Italian President Mattarella said before the meeting. Technically, though, you can.
Orbán siren call: Meloni’s outrage at the way the traditional political families are carving up the juicy jobs between themselves sounds a lot like the noises coming from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,who has slammed it as the “wrong path” because it excludes rather than includes countries and “sets the institutions of the European Union on party foundations.”Though if it was ECR foundations, that’d probably be fine.
Meloni’s aggressive rhetoric will worry von der Leyen and her EPP family, who’ve stretched every sinew trying to coax her away from Orbán since she came to power.
No surprises? Of course, we already know the contents of the deal on the table: center-right von der Leyen as Commission president again, Estonia’s liberal PM Kaja Kallas as foreign affairs chief, Portugal’s Socialist former PM António Costa as European Council president, with the possibility to continue for five years. It only got to this stage due to an embarrassing climbdown by the EPP, which wanted to claim half the Council presidency for itself.
What are the odds? There’s confidence around Brussels that a deal can be found today. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said citizens expect “quick work,” not fighting over posts. But that’s the same Scholz who claimed on June 15 that top jobs decisions would be made “very quickly” — and we saw what happened at the leaders’ dinner a couple of days later (spoiler alert: there was no deal).
Reason to be confident 1: Clearly not content with waiting to strike an official backdoor deal today, six negotiators from the three centrist political families, the EPP, S&D and Renew, struck one on Tuesday.
Reason to be confident 2: On Wednesday, von der Leyen took a rare trip to the European Parliament, where she made a beeline for the office of Socialists’ leader Iratxe García, who has made von der Leyen’s cooperation with Meloni a red line. She also met Renew President Valérie Hayer, who’s made working with ECR a similar no-go. The wooing of Parliament has begun in earnest — ahead of a possible July 18 vote on the Commission presidency.
The Italian job: Is Meloni merely blustering to push von der Leyen into giving the next Italian commissioner a hefty portfolio? Or is she really about to shake things up, vote against von der Leyen, and then instruct her MEPs to also kibosh her candidacy in Parliament?
Sending a signal: Whether Meloni votes against the deal or abstains, it’s unlikely to matter in terms of getting von der Leyen across the line. But a “no” would be significant politically and would be a strong signal that the ECR is not happy about being shut out.
Size matters: One EU official told my colleague Barbara Moens: “Meloni should be a grown-up politician. She won’t come to Brussels to throw a tantrum.” A senior EU diplomat said: “I hope that we will get the third-biggest country of the eurozone on board.”
Realpolitik: In reality, it would be weird if Meloni wasn’t crying foul at this crucial juncture in the negotiations, when she has maximum leverage to demand a big job in the next Commission. Italy is unlikely to be satisfied without an executive vice president, if such roles still exist — but it’s tricky to have these conversations officially before the next Commission president has been elected by MEPs.
Pull the other one: One EU diplomat tried to claim that even if Italy gets a big job in the next Commission, it’ll be seen as an Italian job, not an ECR one. As if there’s a difference. Meloni is the literal president of the ECR party.
PiS PRESSURE: Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party know all about last-ditch negotiations. After all, they’re on the receiving end of a massive heap of pressure from Poland’s Law and Justice party right now in the Parliament, where they sit together in the ECR group.
Polish-Italian tensions: The ECR pushed back its constitutive meeting — where co-president jobs would have been decided — to July 3 after the Poles refused to show up on Wednesday. Little is being said publicly but it seems clear that both sides are locking horns over the distribution of powerful internal positions. “Italians need [a] few more days to deliver certain provisions,” one ECR group insider told Playbook.
ALSO AT EUCO
ZELENSKYY FLIES IN TO SOAK UP SUPPORT: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be the special guest at today’s European Council summit. His visit will provide a show of EU unity just before Hungary takes over the EU’s rotating Council presidency. It also comes after the Belgians moved forward on Russian sanctions and Ukraine’s accession talks in the closing days of their presidency. Reminder: Hungary is still blocking €6.6 billion in military aid for Ukraine.
COMMON BORROWING FOR DEFENSE? Leaders will talk about how to boost funding for defense, Jacopo Barigazzi reports in today’s Morning Defense newsletter. “Expect this to be quite an animated discussion, because the question of financing is controversial in the Union,” an EU official told him.
BALTS AND POLES WANT RUSSIA BORDER BUDGET: The leaders of countries bordering Belarus and Russia will call for EU financial help to buttress their frontier defenses, according to a letter seen by Jacopo and Playbook’s own Nick Vinocur, also for Defense Pros.
NO PEDRO: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez won’t be attending due to the death of his father-in-law. He’s delegated his decision-making to Olaf Scholz.
IMPORTANT (?) PIECE OF PAPER! The EU’s Strategic Agenda, something that is meant to guide the bloc’s policies for the next five years, should be agreed upon today. If Hungary doesn’t get in the way.
FUTURE COMMISSIONERS
It seems everyone wants a strong economic portfolio in the next Commission. But at least one country is going to end up with the Commissioner for Paper Clips and Institutional Canteen Menus. Here’s the latest on who wants what and who’s in the running.
CZECH REPUBLIC — TECHNOCRAT OR POLITICIAN? Economist and university professor Danuše Nerudová is one of two names being officially touted as the next Czech commissioner, but word is that PM Petr Fiala might appoint a technocrat instead.
“We should avoid sending highly ranked civil servants to become commissioners,” Nerudová, a Renew MEP, told Playbook. “We need candidates with strong political legitimacy,” she added. The one-time Czech presidential candidate said her country would probably most be interested in a portfolio dealing with the industrial side of the Green Deal, or regional development. Her Mayors & Independents party has put forward both her and Trade Minister Jozef Síkela to the government.
LITHUANIA — WEBER BACKS LANDSBERGIS: Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis got the backing of EPP leader Manfred Weber, my colleague Stuart Lau writes in to report. While widely seen as a frontrunner, Landsbergis has not yet been named as Lithuania’s commissioner-nominee. President Gitanas Nausėda, who has not yet endorsed any politician, has openly questioned the foreign ministry’s handling of the row with China over Taiwan’s representative office in Vilnius, vowing at one point to rebuild ties with Beijing.
ITALY — COMMISSIONER FOR SHREDDING? Meloni said Italy should get a portfolio for tackling bureaucracy in the next Commission. Did she mean it? Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has mentioned industry and agriculture as key focuses.
SLOVAKIA — BIG ECONOMIC JOB? Slovak President Peter Pellegrini urged von der Leyen to give Bratislava’s candidate for the next Commission Maroš Šefčovič a strong economic portfolio at a meeting Thursday, local media reported. Pellegrini is also lobbying to get six Smer MEPs back into the S&D group, after they were suspended last year over concerns about the rightward swing of Slovakia’s ruling coalition.
IRELAND — FINANCIAL TIMES: Finance Minister Michael McGrath (Fianna Fáil, Renew) has been nominated as Ireland’s next commissioner. There is lots of signaling from Dublin that it wants a finance-related portfolio, my colleague Suzanne Lynch writes in to say. Could his chances be hurt by the fact Fianna Fáil MEPs have said they’ll vote against von der Leyen?
FRANCE — ON THE FRONTEX FOOT: National Rally MEP Fabrice Leggeri wants to be the next French commissioner, telling POLITICO’s Paris Playbook: “I think I have experience and qualifications that are beyond [those] of a senior civil servant or average politician.” Leggeri led the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, from 2015 until his resignation in 2022 after a watchdog accused the agency of mistreating migrants and other misconduct.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
S&D PICKS SQUAD FOR EU(ROS): The S&D group elected its vice chairs, and presented them as a football team online, with President Iratxe García as the striker. Attacking leftwingers: Camilla Laureti, Mohammed Chahim … midfielders Gabriele Bischoff, Christophe Clergeau and Ana Catarina Mendes … defenders Heléne Fritzon, Yannis Maniatis, Kathleen Van Brempt and Alex Agius Saliba … treasurer/goalkeeper Eero Heinäluoma. Finnish MEPHeinäluoma is 6 foot 4, so it makes sense to put him in goal. For anyone wondering about the formation, it’s 4-3-3.
Didn’t make the squad: Biljana Borzan and Klára Dobrev.
DUTCH VVD LOSES PRIME JOB IN RENEW: TheliberalDutch VVD lost influence in the European Parliament when Irish MEP Billy Kelleher became the first vice president of the Renew group on Wednesday, taking the position held for five years by Malik Azmani.The VVD caused a stir in the group by striking a Dutch coalition government deal with the far-right party of Geert Wilders, which stifled Azmani’s bid to lead the group in January. Renew didn’t publish the names of its other vice chairs.
RENEW ↑3 TO 75: Renew announced three new members: Bulgarian We Continue the Change MEPs Nikola Minchev and Hristo Petrov (who is a hip hop artist-turned anti-corruption politician), plus Romania’s Eugen Tomac, who jumped ship from the EPP group. But Czech Pirate MEP Markéta Gregorová decided to stick with the Greens/EFA group, rejecting Renew’s advances.
BATTLE OF THE BALLOTS
BARDELLA’S HOME CROWD DISADVANTAGE: Jordan Bardella’s hometown won’t be voting for his far-right National Rally party in the upcoming French parliamentary election, reports Victor Goury-Laffont in this dispatch from Saint-Denis, one of the most populous suburbs in Paris where nearly one in three inhabitants is an immigrant.
Now read this: Bardella tells the FT in an interview that he’ll fight a “cultural battle” against Islamism and secure an EU budget rebate, while promising “a lot of pragmatism” on the economy if his party wins the French election.
EXPOSED BY THE BELL: Campaigners knocking on doors ahead of the British election on July 4 are being caught out making racially charged remarks by doorbell cameras, reports John Johnston.
FARAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE: Esther Webber has this fascinating story on the lessons Nigel Farage learned from the American right — which he’s now using to usurp the Conservative Party, among the oldest and most resilient building blocks of the British political system.
AMERICA’S TOP JOB RACE: The first head-to-head TV debate of the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, between Democrat incumbent Joe Biden and Republican candidate DonaldTrump, will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, at 3 a.m. our time tonight. The debate could be defined by Trump’s recent criminal conviction, Ankush Khardori writes for POLITICO Magazine.
NOT-SO-TOP EU JOBS
FRUSTRATION BOILS OVER AT EU JOBS MAZE: Diplomats and young staffers vented frustration at the opaque, slow and sometimes soul-crushing process people go through to get a job in the EU institutions at a seminar held at the Finnish perm rep on Wednesday. The Commission is publishing more job ads than before, rather than just keeping them secret, but the diplomats and young EU workers said there is much to be improved.
Friends club: Getting a long-term job in the EU — which some people aspire to, apparently — is an insider’s game.And many feel the system isn’t working. “We feel from the outside that the system is very complicated,” said Finnish diplomat Jenni Hakala. Dutch diplomat Tristan Schyns added that many candidates with high potential end up dropping out.
Working on it: The Commission relies on thousands of people on short-term contracts, and the number of “temporary agents,” who can be on contracts for as little as a year, has grown massively recently. Stephen Collins of DG HR acknowledged there’s a problem. “We get a lot of complaints about it, and we fully share [those concerns] and understand it,” he said. “We are working on it.”
OTHER NEWS
TARABA + BEAR: A mysterious death. Bear attacks. And Tomáš Taraba, a wily far-right Slovak minister overturning decades of green progress. Karl Mathiesen and Louise Guillot traveled to Slovakia to explore whether overzealous nature protections really were responsible for the death of a 31-year-old Belarus tourist this year. What they discovered was that populist attacks on the environment as being a concern of the elite often end up benefiting the richest.
RENZI + BLAIR: Having failed to get elected to the European Parliament, Italy’s most disliked former PM Matteo Renzi is joining his British counterpart Tony Blair’s political consultancy, the Institute for Global Change, as a strategic adviser, Hannah Roberts emails in to say. Renzi, who is known for cashing in on advisory and consultancy positions for the likes of Saudi Arabia, will apparently provide advice to global leaders on their reform programs. Sanna Marin is also part of the team.
SPEAKING OF MARIN: The former Finnish prime minister didn’t rule out a return to frontline politics in a POLITICO Power Play interview with Anne McElvoy. Marin said there are still too few women in leading roles across Europe: “We should really ask why is this? Are we supporting women enough? Because women are not worse than men.” Listen here.
NGOs PUSH FOR EQUALITY: In a letter to Olaf Scholz, three equality networks urged the German government to unblock the Equal Treatment Directive, which would extend protection against discrimination to areas beyond employment.