US tariffs worry Greece, too
Concerns are raised in the government and businesses about the effects of the new Trump tariffs on the local economy, though both the prime minister and the governor of the Bank of Greece attempted to allay fears on Thursday.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1266127/us-tariffs-worry-greece-too
Mitsotakis: PPC’s ‘flagship’ investment in Western Macedonia is ‘visionary and ambitious’
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday described PPC as a “national champion” and highlighted its large “flagship” investment in Western Macedonia, in a speech at the Kardia Steam Power Plant (SPP) to present the PPC’s investment plan for in the area.
PASOK presents its housing policy, calls for more involvement by local government
PASOK-Movement for Change (KINAL) presented its housing policy ‘GenRent’ at the Art Factory in the southern suburb of Tavros on Thursday.
IELKA: 1.59% annual increase in product prices in supermarkets in March
There was a 1.59% increase in supermarket product prices in March 2025 in relation to March 2024, according to a survey released by the Institute of Retail Consumer Goods Research (IELKA) on Thursday. Also, over a rolling 12-month period (April 2024-March 2025), supermarket product prices recorded a decrease of 0.27%, while in the first quarter of 2025 there was an increase of 0.76%. Prices in March 2025 relative to the preceding month, February 2025, decreased by 0.19%.
ATHEX: Stocks slump as concerns on trade grow
The Greek bourse suffered a similar fate to other eurozone markets on Thursday, as the sweeping Trump tariffs sent shockwaves across the world and saw capital shifting from stocks to bonds. The benchmark at Athinon Avenue lost 30 points, though its drop was not as dramatic as that of last Monday, as some blue chips resisted the pressure and contained the index’s losses.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1266123/athex-stocks-slump-as-concerns-on-trade-grow
KATHIMERINI: Shock and awe in the markets due to Trump
TA NEA: Railway station masters under the influence of drugs
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Global economy faces tremors due to Trump’s tariffs
RIZOSPASTIS: NATO’s ‘hawks’ demand 5% of GDP for war expenditure
KONTRA NEWS: Mitsotakis tours Greece under the protection of riot police
DIMOKRATIA: Easter with empty wallets
NAFTEMPORIKI: International agreements and markets collapse
DRIVING THE DAY: TARIFFS, DUH.
THE TAO OF DEGLOBALIZATION: Europe’s plan for surviving a trade war is starting to sound a lot like a guided Zen meditation.
The mantras: Take deep breaths. Remember that we’re all one. Accept impermanence.
Let’s take them one at a time.
1. BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT
SHORT-TERM TACTIC — PLAY IT COOL, MAN: Brussels isn’t rushing to retaliate against the new 20 percent levy on most exports to the U.S. because, officials say, they want to project calm. “We decided not to react right away, so as not to give the impression of panicking,” one EU diplomat told my colleagues over at Morning Trade.
Not exactly soothing advice: “Do not retaliate. Sit back. Take it in,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advised countries during a Fox News interview. “Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation. If you don’t retaliate, this is the high water mark.”
But let’s not kid ourselves. There’s a lot to panic about. The numbers are worth a thousand words (and €380 billion).
BY THE NUMBERS … care of Koen Verhelst and Camille Gijs …
25 percent: U.S. tariff on cars, car parts, steel and aluminum.
20 percent: Additional tariff covering other EU exports to the U.S.
70 percent: Portion of EU exports to the U.S. affected by the new tariffs.
€380 billion: Total value of EU exports impacted by the tariffs.
— That’s €26 billion for steel and aluminum tariffs; €66 billion for cars; and €290 billion for the rest of the reciprocal tariffs overall.
€81 billion: How much the U.S. would earn off all these duties if trade with the EU stayed the same. (Which, obvs, it won’t. More on that next.)
— That’s compared to the €7 billion that flowed into Uncle Sam’s coffers last year.
50 percent: About how much EU exports to the U.S. could drop in the medium term, per a Bloomberg Economics analysis shared with Playbook.
1.1 percent: The proportion of EU economic activity that is now at risk, also per Bloomberg Economics.
2. THE ONENESS OF BEING
LONG-HAUL STRATEGY — STAY UNIFIED: Even before Donald Trump announced his new tariffs, Brussels stressed the need for countries to stand together, rather than try to forge their own bilateral deals. As Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it in her official reply Thursday, “If you take on one of us, you take on all of us.”
Brexit means Brexit: Trump, for all his disdain of the EU, is certainly treating the 27 countries as a cohesive unit — much to the dismay of Budapest, which got lumped in with the rest of the bloc despite Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chummy ties with the White House. Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer seems to be in a happy middle ground, with his country earning a mere 10 percent tariff while moving forward with a “reset” with the EU. And he’s trying to get an even better deal.
The X-post making Bjoern Seibert, Maroš Šefčovič, Emmanuel Macron et al.’s heads explode: Eric Trump, the president’s third child, had this advice: “I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump. The first to negotiate will win — the last will absolutely lose.”
It hasn’t been for lack of trying on Europe’s part, as those mentioned above would protest. So for them, we go back to step one … breathe in, breathe out …
Macron calls for corporate solidarity: Companies that announced big plans to invest in the U.S. in a bid to appease Trump should hit pause, said the French president. “What message would we send by having major European players investing billions of euros in the American economy at a time when [the U.S.] are hitting us?” Macron said during a meeting with reps from the affected sectors at the Elysée, calling for “collective solidarity.” Read more from Giorgio Leali.
Unity beyond Europe: “An alliance with Canada and Mexico is the order of the day,” said Germany’s outgoing Economy Minister Robert Habeck, Chris Lunday reports from Berlin. (Though a German-led push to open the EU defense deal to the U.K. and Canada is running into French opposition, report Gregorio Sorgi and Jacopo Barigazzi.)
Madrid’s solo approach: So far, Spain is focusing on domestic industry, with a €14 billion aid plan. Aitor Hernández-Morales has the details.
Looking for new markets: Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani stressed the need to “keep a straight back” in a meeting with European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič Thursday. He’s planning a trip to India in the coming days as Rome seeks to expand its access to other markets, according to a press release.
What Trump wants from China: TikTok. The president suggested he could cut tariffs on Beijing if it allows ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, to divest the video sharing app to avoid a ban in the U.S., the FT reports. Reminder: Saturday is the deadline for the Trump administration to broker a deal that would allow the app to continue operating in the U.S., with POLITICO’s Irie Sentner reporting it’s a make-or-break moment for Vice President JD Vance, who is shepherding the negotiations.
3. EMBRACE IMPERMANENCE
RELEASE THE PAST: Capitals and companies had hoped that with dire enough warnings and ardent enough ingratiation, Trump would drop his plans to blow up the global economic order.
Let it go: Trump is shrugging off the stock market crash — he’s been warned to expect it, after all. A list of White House talking points sent to his Republican allies in Congress, and obtained by my POLITICO colleagues in D.C., argues Trump is “revolutionizing global trade” and his actions “will usher in a reshoring renaissance.”
ACCEPTANCE: Your Playbooker has been thinking about something Matthias Berninger, EVP of public affairs for the German pharma and agri-chemical giant Bayer, said in Davos, just before Trump addressed the high-flying World Economic Forum crowd. The mood was heady optimism about a wave of deregulation, but Berninger was more sober. “Globalization was all about just in time, fragmentation will be about just in case,” Berninger told Playbook.
New normal: The coronavirus pandemic was the first taste of what happens when complicated supply chains linking cheap products to cheap labor are disrupted, and Berninger was bracing for this to become the new normal as politics takes precedence over business.
And that means life is about to get a lot more expensive.
Breathe in, breathe out …
WHAT’S NEXT
HAPPENING TODAY: The Commission’s trade chief, Šefčovič, plans to brief EU diplomats over lunch, then hold a videoconference with his counterparts on Trump’s team.
Brussels will put forward its second list of countermeasures on steel and aluminum today or Monday, with a vote by EU capitals expected April 9, report Camille, Giorgio and Koen for Trade Pros.
HAPPENING NEXT WEEK …
Monday: The Commission is expected to discuss options with EU trade ministers when they all meet in Luxembourg. Foreign affairs ministers have also planned an emergency virtual meeting.
Von der Leyen meets with the auto and steel industries, Tommaso Lecca reports.
Tuesday: Von der Leyen meets with drugmakers — which have been spared, for now, but no one thinks that’s gonna last. Mari Eccles has more for Health Pros.
HAPPENING … SOON … PROBABLY: The second stage in the EU’s retaliation, against Trump’s 25 percent car tariff and the 20 percent overall duty, could take weeks. “We’re consulting with our member states in real time. We’re buying the space we need to negotiate with the Americans, and we’re looking at targeting our response,” said Commission spokesperson Olof Gill. Full details for Trade Pros here.
MAYBE SHOULD HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED: The Commission’s failure to issue its decisions about potential fines for Apple and Meta under its Digital Markets Act is likely to make the EU’s tech regs part of the trade war, despite Brussels’ preference to portray them as apolitical. Francesca Micheletti has all the ins and outs in the Fair Play newsletter for Competition and Industrial Policy Pros.
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
BRAIN DRAIN BOON: Europe wants to make America’s brain drain its gain by luring scholars fleeing Trump’s assault on progressive research institutions and cuts to university funding. “Europe has a historical responsibility to defend academic freedom,” the EU’s Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation Ekaterina Zaharieva told MEPs this week.
Cash and visas: To boost Europe’s allure for scholars, the EU plans to enshrine scientific freedom in law, fork out millions in grants and create a special visa for top talent. Meanwhile, governments from Barcelona to Berlin are launching initiatives to recruit American researchers.
Not poaching, helping: European Research Council President Maria Leptin told POLITICO the bloc isn’t purposely trying to poach U.S. academic talent, “but we want to help our colleagues over there if we can.” Read the story here from Aitor Hernández-Morales, Giedrė Peseckytė and Pieter Haeck.
DEFENDING EUROPE
RUSSIA HAWKS AND U.K. PLOT DEFENSE FUND OVER DINNER: Governments from Northern Europe are in talks with Poland and the U.K. to create a new common fund to finance defense, two EU diplomats and a government official told my colleagues Gregorio Sorgi and Giovanna Faggionato.
Warsaw Buyers Club: The potential new defense club is open to countries that want to spend big on security and have low public debts. That rules out most Southern European countries including France, Italy and Spain.
The big idea: Countries joining the new fund can jointly buy weapons at a lower price, and benefit from cheap loans to spend on defense.
Dinner date with the ex: The U.K. discussed an informal proposal for the new bank with civil servants from the Swedish, Dutch, Polish, Finnish and Danish finance ministries last week, two EU diplomats confirmed.
Getting serious: Talks will heat up during a gathering of EU finance ministers in Warsaw next week. Story here for Defense and Financial Services Pros.
NATSEC NORMIES CAN’T QUIT NATO: “The United States is in NATO,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the alliance’s Brussels HQ on Thursday. And it’s “as active in NATO as ever, and some of this hysteria and hyperbole that I see … is unwarranted.”
Staying in command: Furthermore, it would be “problematic” for the U.S. to sacrifice its role commanding NATO forces in Europe, current commander Christopher Cavoli said Thursday, amid reports of a massive reshuffle. “We could have, for the first time since the First World War, large numbers of American troops under non-U.S. command,” he told lawmakers.
RUSSIA OPENS DOOR TO SECURITY GUARANTEES FOR KYIV: Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev said Thursday that “some security guarantees in some form” for Ukraine “may be acceptable,” following two days of talks at the White House with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff. Dmitriev, a close adviser to President Vladimir Putin, didn’t expand on what guarantees are on the table. Write-up here.
TRUMP AND PUTIN, CALLING, MAYBE: My Playbook counterparts in London and Berlin are hearing expectations that another Trump-Putin call will take place either before or after the weekend — but, as ever with Trump, nothing is set in stone.
POLITICAL SPECTRUM = HORSESHOE
LISTEN UP — YANIS VAROUFAKIS ON TRUMP, LE PEN AND THE FATE OF THE LEFT: “Trump is trolling all of us, left-wingers and right-wingers,” former Greek Finance Minister (and left-winger) Yanis Varoufakis said, marveling that “it feels a bit strange to have the United States dismantling NATO, the World Trade Organization, globalization, and the second phase of the post-war capitalist era.”
In a wide-ranging interview with yours truly for the EU Confidential podcast, the economist and politician who famously resisted a global bailout during the Greek debt crisis, defended French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s right to run for office despite her corruption conviction, while attacking Germany and the European Commission’s moves to borrow big for defense as “military Keynesianism” that’s doomed to leave Europeans poorer. Listen and subscribe here.
AS FOR TROLLING THE RIGHT-WINGERS: Trump tariffs put Europe’s far-right leaders in a bind.
IN OTHER NEWS
“FREE MARINE LE PEN!” Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform overnight, claiming she is a fellow victim of a legal “Witch Hunt.” “Sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me,” Trump said of the embezzlement charges for which Le Pen was this week sentenced.
Spoiler alert: Le Pen is free, and will remain so while her appeal is pending. And even if she loses, her four-year prison sentence — two years of which are suspended — would be served under house arrest. (Though a five-year ban on running for office takes immediate effect.)
Meanwhile, Jordan Bardella is close to becoming French president — but also, so far from it. Clea Caulcutt has more.
MACRON’S NEW BRAIN: Emmanuel Moulin, one of France’s most influential civil servants, is set to take over as Emmanuel Macron’s chief of staff later this month. Giorgio Leali has a profile.
SCHWAB OUT AT WEF (EVENTUALLY): World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab will “start the process” of stepping down as chair of the WEF’s board of trustees, he said in a letter to board members, the FT reports. The move comes after an investigation into workplace discrimination. Schwab didn’t give a timeline for his exit, but the WEF told the FT it should be complete by January 2027.
EU REGIONS WANT ACCOUNTABILITY FOR TURKEY: During a plenary that wrapped up on Thursday, the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) called on Brussels to consider sanctions against Turkey and review its access to millions of euros via EU financial programs, including pre-accession funds, Šejla Ahmatović reports. The demand follows Ankara’s crackdown on opposition leaders, notably Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu.
Split approach: The regions appear to be taking the opposite approach to the capitals, who have little appetite for confronting Ankara on human rights as they seek to forge a deeper defense alliance with NATO’s second-biggest military.
SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT OUSTED: South Korea’s highest court has upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, formally removing him from office four months after his botched declaration of martial law threw the country into a political crisis. A new presidential election must take place within 60 days. AP has more.