Greece elected to UN Security Council as non-permanent member
Greece has been elected a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for a third time. The country will hold the seat for the 2025-2026 term.
Mitsotakis in call for defence of freedom and democracy at D-Day commemoration
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called for the defence of freedom and democracy on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy.
Kasselakis at Syntagma Square: Support me against those who ruin your lives
The main pre-election speech by SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Stefanos Kasselakis in Syntagma Square on Thursday night was punctuated on an all-out attack against the government of New Democracy and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whom he accused of trying to destroy him.
Poll gives New Democracy 15.1-point lead over SYRIZA
New Democracy enjoys a 15.1-point lead over its main rival SYRIZA, an opinion poll has found.
Conducted by Marc for ANT1 TV, the poll of voting intentions in Sunday’s European Parliament election put the governing conservative party on 29.8%, left-wing SYRIZA on 14.8% and socialist PASOK on 9.8%.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1240818/poll-gives-new-democracy-15-1-point-over-syriza
ATHEX: SSM verdict helps stock market rise
The decision by the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) of the European Central Bank approving the distribution of dividends by Greek banks helped the credit sector outperform at Athinon Avenue on Thursday and carry along the benchmark to a second day of healthy gains. Nevertheless, the majority of stocks and the mid-cap index ended up in the red.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1240823/athex-ssm-verdict-helps-stock-market-rise
KATHIMERINI: Small breathing space for loan holders
TA NEA: Bank loans: Monthly installments reduced due to the reduction of ECB’s rates
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Wiretappings scandal: the coup d’état has been completed
AVGI: We vote in favor of SYRIZA for a Greece governed with justice and a strong welfare state
RIZOSPASTIS: More votes for the Greek Communist Party means more power to the people
KONTRA NEWS: New Democracy is posting large losses
DIMOKRATIA: Shocking report on the fatal Tempi rail-crash
NAFTEMPORIKI: Triple impact due to the reduction of ECB’s interest rates
DRIVING THE DAY: DUTCH TEA LEAVES
EXIT POLL — STATISTICAL TIE FOR WILDERS: Exit polls in the Netherlands showed Geert Wilders’ radical-right Freedom Party winning seven seats in the European Parliament, and a Labor-Green alliance winning eight. With a margin of error of one seat, that technically counts as a tie — we won’t know the real result until Sunday evening. Eva Hartog and Koen Verhelst have more on the results.
The center holds, at least at the EU level: For the Labor-Green merger, even a tiny projected margin still feels like a victory. Polls at the national level show Wilders’ support is growing since his surprise win in last year’s election, and stands at about twice the Labor-Greens’. Yet it appears the passion Wilders has inspired in disaffected voters doesn’t transfer as well to the EU level.
Precedent or outlier? “The far right doesn’t need to win!” said Frans Timmermans, the former Commission climate chief and Dutch Labor leader, saying the Netherlands is a model for the rest of the bloc. But the far right didn’t exactly lose, coming in (at worst) a close second to a joint campaign driven by two of EU’s most high-profile figures, Timmermans and MEP Bas Eickhout, one of the European Greens’ lead candidates.
PRO-RUSSIAN CYBERATTACKS: “The Netherlands is the first country to vote for a new European Parliament,” pro-Russian hacker group HackNeT wrote on Telegram Wednesday. “So they’ll be the first to suffer from DDoS attacks.” The group hit several Dutch political parties. The European Court of Auditors’ website was also shut down by cyberattacks, a spokesperson said.
UP NEXT: Polls open in Ireland and the Czech Republic today. Latvia, Malta, Slovakia and Italy vote on Saturday. Everything you need to know here.
LISTEN UP: What are voters in those countries really thinking about when they go to the polls — does it actually have anything to do with Brussels? Or is all politics local? This week’s episode of the EU Confidential podcast breaks down the national issues driving EU votes and crunches the latest polling numbers. Warning: You might get the soundtrack to Evita stuck in your head. Listen here.
Speaking of ear worms and local issues that really matter: Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS hinted that the Netherlands could stay out of the Eurovision song contest next year, following the disqualification of Joost Klein and his Europapa song.
THE TOSS-UPS
WILL THESE MEPs HAVE A JOB ON MONDAY? Some incumbents know they’re almost certain to return to Strasbourg in July — perhaps their party put them at the top of its list — while others fell out of favor and have had weeks or even months to start processing their grief. Yet others must wait to hear from voters: they’re fifth or sixth on a list for a party projected to win five seats, for example. Or maybe they’re from a country where voters choose leaders by name — but there hasn’t been a poll asking about them.
Could go either way: These are the MEPs who will spend the weekend biting their nails and crossing their fingers. Playbook consulted colleagues (especially Eddy Wax and Hanne Cokelaere), the polls and campaign experts for gut checks about people whose chances of reelection range from 40 to 60 percent. Here are some names that stood out:
— Kathleen Van Brempt, Belgium, S&D: Elected four times to the Parliament, Van Brempt served as chair of the special committee examining the EU’s pandemic response. Yet her return is in doubt after having to relinquish her spot at the top of the Flemish Vooruit ticket in favor of a former party president, Bruno Tobback.
— Katalin Cseh, Hungary, Renew: Cseh is a darling of the Brussels establishment; if you’re looking for a critic of Viktor Orbán or a charming emcee for MEP award ceremonies, she’s a reliable go-to. Yet polls suggest Orbán’s new chief antagonist, Péter Magyar, and his Tisza party could poach her seat.
— Anders Vistisen, Denmark, ID: As the far-right’s Spitzenkandidat on the debate stage, Vistisen pledged to clear the Brussels swamp by firing 10,000 bureaucrats. But he might get fired by Danish voters. They vote for candidates by name, so it’s hard to predict, but his Dansk Folkeparti is polling around the bare minimum of what might qualify for one of the country’s 15 seats.
— Jacek Saryusz-Wolski and Karol Karski, Poland, ECR: Saryusz-Wolski is one of PiS’s most EU-savvy pols, and he’s been the subject of speculation as a potential EU commissioner. Karski has served four terms. Yet both incumbents are only No. 2 on their respective district lists for PiS. Saryusz-Wolski is behind Mariusz Kamiński, a former intelligence chief; Karski behind Maciej Wąsik. Kamiński and Wąsik made headlines in Poland for (unsuccessfully) hiding in the presidential palace to avoid arrest and, after being pardoned, storming the national parliament in a crusade to discredit Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s rule-of-law initiatives.
— Rainer Wieland, Germany, EPP: People started writing the long-serving VP’s political obituary as early as last year, when his CDU party made clear that it wanted to promote fresh blood. Wieland did get bumped down the list in favor of younger, women candidates. Yet there’s no sense rushing to fumigate his notoriously smoke-filled office. In a country as big as Germany, a shift of a percentage or two matters for those with middling spots on their lists, and we’re not quite ready to count out one of the institution’s most canny operators and stalwart practitioners of “Parliamentarism.”
— Lara Wolters, the Netherlands, S&D: The legal affairs committee vice chair’s name kept coming up during our reporting, but last night’s exit poll offers some relief. She’s No. 7 on the Labor-Green alliance list, which the poll predicts will win eight seats.
Bonus — Dirk Gotink: He wasn’t an MEP, but he did have a job in this Parliament, as spokesman for EPP leader Manfred Weber. Now he’s leading the list of Pieter Omtzigt’s New Social Contract party, which the Dutch exit polls predicted could get one seat — but the margin of error is one seat.
AND SPEAKING OF WEBER AND TOSS-UPS: Check out this long-read on the EPP chief by my Playbook colleagues Eddy Wax and Nick Vinocur, who explore whether Weber will manage to get his bête noire Ursula von der Leyen across the line for a second stint in the Commission top job.
Date for your diary: The European Parliament has penciled in July 18 as the day MEPs could vote to elect the next Commission president.
GOING OUT WITH A BANG
TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THINK, SOPHIE: “Parliament has literally missed every single opportunity to assert itself, to use its powers, to exercise scrutiny of the Commission, to be a proper counterweight against European Council. I mean, literally every opportunity.”
Those are the words of MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld, who joined the Belgian VOLT list last year after being ousted from her Dutch party, speaking to Playbook alum Jakob Hanke Vela. She acknowledged that her return to the Hemicycle next month is a “long shot,” but “stranger things have happened in politics.”
TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THINK, NICO: His five years as an MEP made him a “worse person” and “under no circumstances” will he return. That’s the assessment of satirist German MEP Nico Semsrott, who says he loathed every minute of his time in office — but wants Europeans to turn up to vote: “The least you can do is make it harder for what I call evil people to make their points.” Zia Weise and Hanne Cokelaere have the interview.
TOP JOBS
VIENNA’S POSSIBLE PUSH FOR FINANCE: Rumors are rife that Austria’s Finance Minister Magnus Brunner is seeking an audience with Ursula von der Leyen today as she zips through Vienna on her reelection campaign.
The motive? The free-market-wielding Austrians are considering putting Brunner forward as a commissioner candidate, POLITICO’s Bjarke Smith-Meyer hears.
Game theory: It’s no secret that there’s appetite in Vienna for an economic policy post in Brussels, whether trade, competition, macroeconomy or finance. The first two are highly prized jobs and the third is very political given it enforces the bloc’s limits on public debt and budget deficits. As long as France and Italy don’t get the macroeconomic job, Vienna is happy. Moving past the political posts and targeting the finance job would be an easier feat.
New player: Until now, the name circulating the most as Austrian commissioner was Karoline Edtstadler, the country’s EU minister. Austria’s experienced Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg has denied interest in the gig.
CROWDED HRVP RACE: Spain’s Josep Borrell is on his way out as the EU’s top diplomat. Who will be the next counterpart for the likes of Antony Blinken, Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi? Estonian PM Kaja Kallas is the most talked-about name in Brussels. Belgium’s PM Alexander De Croo has built a lot of goodwill with his counterparts in the European Council. And Poland’s Radek Sikorski is hoping for a top job. POLITICO has all the runners and riders here.
HUNGARY GAMES
RACING TOWARD THE PRESIDENCY CLIFF EDGE: Hungary is set to take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on July 1. That means the Belgian presidency is feeling the deadline pressure to finish key files, especially when it comes to military funding (and EU accession) for Ukraine. As Barbara Moens and Jacopo Barigazzi report, diplomats are set to be debriefed (guilt-tripped?) today on both Ukraine’s fight against Russia and its progress toward accession, amid expectations the Commission will recommend the EU kick off talks with Ukraine this month. But Budapest is unlikely to budge.
Accession blockade, Round 2: The Belgian presidency has penciled in the official opening of talks on accession of both Ukraine and Moldova on June 25, but EU ambassadors are not expected to green light it, despite a push from 12 EU countries on Wednesday. Budapest still has too many objections, especially on national minorities in Ukraine, four EU diplomats said. “Don’t expect any positive surprises,” as one put it.
… and Rounds 3 and 4: Another ambassadors’ discussion on the accession talks is already penciled in for Wednesday next week (and if necessary, Round 4 could happen on June 19).
Military funding: This morning, EU ambassadors will meet and be updated on the military situation on the ground in Ukraine, two diplomats said. It’s a prelude to negotiations over the coming weeks about the European Peace Facility and €6.6 billion in further reimbursements of military aid to Ukraine — still blocked by Hungary.
The new semi-annual cycle: It seems like every six months, Brussels launches into a new guessing game about what Viktor Orbán wants this time around. More money? An important portfolio in the next European Commission? “But as always with the Hungarians, we won’t know until the big boss steps into the room,” another EU official said. Their only hope for escape: a new dynamic after the EU election.
FOR THE RECORD — IT AIN’T JUST HUNGARY: Germany is opposing efforts to close a loophole that allows high-end goods, including luxury cars, to reach Russia via Belarus, four EU diplomats told POLITICO. France was also not on board, report Camille Gijs, Antonia Zimmermann and Koen Verhelst — meaning Putin’s oligarchs can keep buying Mercedes and BMWs.
FRANCO-AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP
JOE AND MANU: You can add this chaotic, yin-yang bromance to our list of political relationships. U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in France on Saturday, with several thorny issues and the potential return of Macron’s scorned former BFF Donald Trump to the White House weighing on both. But in spite of their substantive and cultural differences — and across a yawning, 35-year age gap — the two men have come to trust each other in striking ways, reports my colleague Eli Stokols.