Greek content, Turkish ire
Athens and Nicosia have expressed satisfaction over Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides’ recent visit to Washington and his meeting with US President Joe Biden.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/foreign-policy/1252305/greek-content-turkish-ire
PM reaffirms commitment to new minimum wage hikes
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday confirmed the government’s decision to institute further rises to Greece’s minimum wage, bringing it up to 950 euros by 2027, during a meeting with the Cabinet on Thursday.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1252257/pm-reaffirms-commitment-to-new-minimum-wage-hikes
As summers get hotter, seasonal firefighters protest for permanent jobs
Hundreds of seasonal firefighters gathered outside the Civil Protection Ministry, demanding permanent positions as their contracts expire following a grueling wildfire season.
Counter-terrorism service assumes investigation of blast in Ambelokipi apt; gun found
The counter-terrorism service took over the investigation into an explosion at a third-floor apartment in the Ambelokipi section of Athens on Thursday afternoon that killed a man and seriously injured a woman.
ATHEX: October posts year’s biggest monthly drop
Contrary to expectations for a rebound of stocks after three days of decline in a row, the Greek bourse remained on a Coming off a near-three-month low on Wednesday, the Greek bourse tried to stage a reaction to its price decline on Thursday, but the effort appeared only half-hearted. While the majority of stocks closed with gains and the benchmark marginally remained in positive territory, the indexes of large caps and the banks dived into the red again, as October closed with a 4.77% slide for the main index, its biggest monthly decline since September 2023.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1252308/athex-october-posts-years-biggest-monthly-drop
KATHIMERINI: Apartment blast points to new domestic terror network
TA NEA: A new terrorist group is emerging
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Predator-gate: Key witness who wasn’t called to testify; “If the district attorney summons me I will go”
RIZOSPASTIS: Government beats up and arrests seasonal firefighters instead of satisfying their justified demands
KONTRA NEWS: Report on the course of the economy slaps the government
DIMOKRATIA: Bishop of Kissamos saved the honor of Crete by criticizing the German President Steinmeier
NAFTEMPORIKI: Inflation puts a break on interest rates
DRIVING THE DAY: COMMISSIONER HEARINGS
GET READY FOR A 10-DAY STAND-OFF: Monday heralds a marathon of parliamentary hearings for the EU’s wannabe commissioners. The received wisdom in Brussels this week was that all 26 will pass — it’s as if the European Parliament has signed a non-aggression pact with Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
Do the math(s): “The arithmetic of it forces everyone into a truce,” one European People’s Party MEP told me and Nicholas Vinocur. The EPP has the most to lose, given more than half of the incoming commissioners hail from its ranks, but as the biggest group it also has the clout to threaten retribution against other groups. The equation makes an uneasy stalemate the most likely outcome.
Has Parliament gone soft? By this point in the process five years ago, two commissioners had already been rejected (Romania’s Rovana Plumb and Hungary’s László Trócsányi), and France’s Sylvie Goulard faced the guillotine after her hearing. If the Parliament doesn’t reject anyone, it would be the first time since 2004 that all nominees sail through their hearings. Some might ask whether Parliament is shirking its overseer duties.
More reasons to capitulate: But the Parliament is under pressure like never before to ensure a quick and painless process. Von der Leyen wants to kick off her already-delayed Commission on Dec. 1. And a win for Donald Trump in Tuesday’s U.S. election could create a frantic atmosphere that “may be [to] the nominees’ advantage,” said Ben Crum, a political scientist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Pressure points: The two most obviously at-risk commissioners are Italy’s Raffaele Fitto, nominated by Giorgia Meloni, and Hungary’s Olivér Várhelyi, nominated for a second term by Viktor Orbán. For a year, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and liberals in Renew Europe have repeatedly threatened not to support von der Leyen and her EPP if she attempts to bring Meloni into the mainstream in Brussels. Will they back down when the real moment of truth comes?
Some are daring them to follow through: “This is one of these moments where you can show what a constructive majority [is],” said Volt MEP Boeselager, “or you can let it go in this wishy-washy way and [EPP leader Manfred] Weber will continue to vote with the far right.”
Venezuela or VDL? “Currently the EPP is pretending as if they have a majority alone and so the S&D and Renew need to understand their power to mark the territory of the coalition,” said Boeselager, who sits with the Greens. Boeselager sees this as a defining moment for the shape of the new European Parliament. Will the EPP rely on support from the same Socialist-liberal-Green coalition that elected von der Leyen — or will it be tempted by the new so-called far-right Venezuela majority?
But everyone’s protecting someone: It’s unclear how far the Socialists and liberals would be willing to go in voting down the others’ candidates, especially when they have such big portfolios to defend. Spain’s Teresa Ribera is effectively going to be von der Leyen’s No. 2, controlling competition and climate policy. And the liberals are a struggling force whose main priority is to get incoming foreign affairs boss Kaja Kallas and French internal market chief Stéphane Séjourné across the line.
Fitto for 55: TheSocialists and liberals who warned von der Leyen not to give Fitto a big job were rebuffed when she made him an executive vice president. Some are still angling for him to be stripped of that title. But do they really expect Meloni to accept a downgrade of her European commissioner?
Don’t stab us in the back: In a letter to von der Leyen dated Thursday, Renew leader Valérie Hayer emphasized the liberals’ priorities for the new commissioners and their expectation that the nominees will be committed to preserving liberty, shielding democracies and restoring the rule of law where it has been compromised. “We will not accept any betrayal over this platform and the goals we pursue as pro-Europeans,” Hayer writes.
Shoot down Várhelyi, get delays: As for Várhelyi, some MEPs feel Orbán got enough of a kicking from von der Leyen in Strasbourg last month. Others fear Orbán might send someone worse if they reject Várhelyi — or that he might refuse to send anyone, delaying the Commission’s start date. Danish MEP Anders Vistisen, chief whip of the Patriots for Europe (which includes Orbán’s Fidesz), said: “If they decide to pick him out of the College just to humiliate the Patriots faction then of course we don’t see any obligation to facilitate a quick confirmation of the Commission.”
The Patriots hope the Socialists do challenge their candidate. “I hope they’re not bluffing because if they start this nuclear option that will only make it easier to convince parts of EPP to work with us,” Vistisen said.
Get ready for Monday: If the hearings do get spicy, the grilling of Maltese nominee Glenn Micallef, affiliated with the S&D, could be the touch-paper that lights the fuse. “If the EPP votes against him, the Pandora’s box is opened,” said a Socialist official. POLITICO will be covering it all with our live blogs — links in Monday’s Playbook.
US ELECTION
SWING STATE BASH: It’s all about the swing states in this final stretch ahead of Tuesday’s incredibly tight U.S. election. Republican hopeful Donald Trump is in Michigan and Wisconsin from this afternoon; Kamala Harris is also in Wisconsin.
This isn’t menacing at all: “I want to protect the women of our country … whether the women like it or not,” Trump told a rally Thursday in Wisconsin. The comment sparked outcry among Democrats, with Harris branding it “very offensive to women.”
Still Orbán’s man: Viktor Orbán wrote on X that he’d called Trump to wish him “best of luck” and had his “fingers crossed.”
SCOOP — EUROPE’S GREENS ASK JILL STEIN TO WITHDRAW: The European Greens are today calling on Jill Stein to withdraw from the race for the White House and endorse Kamala Harris, my colleague Jakob Hanke Vela reports from Washington.
Stein, a Green, is on the ballot in almost every critical state and is polling between 1.1 and 1.4 percent. She could cost Harris critical votes — Muslim organizations in Michigan, for instance, endorsed Stein rather than Harris because of the vice president’s support for Israel in its war against Hezbollah and Hamas.
The European Greens’ warning:“We are clear that Kamala Harris is the only candidate who can block Donald Trump and his anti-democratic, authoritarian policies from the White House,” they said in a statement shared exclusively with POLITICO.
Will Stein listen after the divorce? There’s no longer a direct link between the European Greens and their American counterparts. The European statement attributes this fissure to the U.S. Greens’ “relationship with parties with authoritarian leaders, and serious policy differences on key issues including Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine.” Stein was criticized for attending a 2015 dinner in Moscow sponsored by Russian television network RT, where she sat at the same table as President Vladimir Putin.
HEAR MORE FROM JAKOB … as well as USA Today White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers, on this week’s EU Confidential podcast with host Sarah Wheaton.
FRIDAY FUNNY 1: Brussels should apologize to Washington for taking global attention away from the U.S. election by organizing its commissioner hearings at the same time next week, I argue in this week’s Declassified column.
FRIDAY FUNNY 2: My POLITICO colleagues have this guide on where to escape to if your candidate loses the U.S. election.
EU-CHINA RELATIONS
SCOOP — BEIJING’S OVERTURE TO EU PARLIAMENT: Top Chinese officials recently met with senior MEPs in an attempt to rebuild ties with the European Parliament, Stuart Lau and I can reveal this morning.
Beijing slapped sanctions on 5 MEPs and Parliament’s human rights subcommittee (along with other European entities and individuals) in 2021 after the EU imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over the treatment of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. Since then, the relationship between China and the Parliament has been frozen.
Chinese parliamentarians are “not invited to visit” the institution and official missions will not take place as long as MEPs remain on the sanctions list, although limited bilateral contact in certain circumstances is permitted, according to Parliament’s press service.
Olive branch: German CDU MEP David McAllister, who chairs the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told Playbook that Chinese officials sought a meeting and he agreed in order to “figure out what the Chinese want.” The previously unreported meeting took place on Oct. 15 in McAllister’s office.
In the room: Joining McAllister were German MEP Engin Eroglu, a liberal who chairs the China delegation, and Parliament officials. Attending from the Chinese side were its new Ambassador to the EU Cai Run, Fu Ziying, the vice chair of the foreign affairs committee of the National People’s Congress (who flew in from Beijing), and two other government officials.
The vibe was frosty. “They wanted to test the temperature with us if they can start some parliamentary exchange,” McAllister said. “It was a one-hour ping pong game. I said no. The first step was that you take our colleagues off the sanctions list.”
“There was no outcome,” McAllister said. After finding out what the Chinese wanted, the MEP said he immediately reported it back to officials in the Parliament. He had notified Parliament President Roberta Metsola before the meeting, in line with the institution’s rules for contact with China, which her office confirmed.
Criticism: Markéta Gregorová, a Czech Pirate MEP, said the meeting should not have taken place. “If my other colleagues are banned by the Chinese Communist Party to enter China, I see no reason to invite them into our institution and give them any attention,” she said.
McAllister said he’d debrief his fellow MEPs later this month. “It is not standard practice to communicate meetings of this nature beyond that,” he said. Eroglu refused to comment other than to acknowledge the meeting took place. (His predecessor as chair of the China delegation, Reinhard Bütikofer, was one of the five MEPs China has personally sanctioned, along with Raphaël Glucksmann, Miriam Lexmann, Ilhan Kyuchyuk and Michael Gahler.)
EP weighs in: An official from Roberta Metsola’s office said she “believes it is important for the European Parliament to continue raising its voice in demanding the lifting of sanctions on MEPs as a pre-condition for the de-freezing of relations with China.”
Beijing’s game: The meeting took place amid worsening ties between China and the EU thanks to the bloc’s new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, and just before the U.S. election. Beijing wants to engage with Brussels to drive a wedge between Europe and the possible Donald Trump administration, an EU diplomat said.
And let’s not forget the parliamentary assistant arrested and charged with spying for China earlier this year.
LITHUANIA IS DEFROSTING: The winner of the Lithuanian parliamentary election says it’s time for the country to mend ties with China. Gintautas Paluckas, the Social Democrat candidate for prime minister, said:”Normalization of relations is a certain aspiration because the European Union … is trying to maintain diplomatic relations.”
Whoops: The previous government made a “grave diplomatic mistake” by allowing Taiwan to set up a representative office in Vilnius, Paluckas said — but he wouldn’t reveal whether he would comply if Beijing asks for it to be renamed. Paluckas said the reengagement with China would proceed “without groveling, without falling down, without kowtowing or begging for anything.” There’s currently no ambassador between China and Lithuania.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
LAVROV TO VISIT MALTA: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to visit Malta next month to attend a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Russian media reports. If he makes the trip, it’ll be the first time Lavrov steps foot in an EU country since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, on the frontlines: Up to 8,000 North Korean troops are in Russia’s Kursk region and are expected to start fighting Ukrainian forces imminently, said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He added extra military support for Kyiv will be announced over the coming days.
ISRAEL NEWS: Blinken also said Israel and Lebanon are “making progress” toward a “basis of a diplomatic resolution to the crisis.”
Now read this: The Middle East is in a deadly doom loop, writes my colleague Jamie Dettmer.
DID BREXIT CAUSE BRITAIN TO LOSE THE CHAGOS ISLANDS? Sophie Inge and Esther Webber speak to several people who link the decision to give up the islands to the U.K.’s loss of influence at the U.N. and the International Court of Justice post-Brexit.
IN OTHER NEWS
FLOOD HORROR: Hundreds of soldiers are due to arrive in Valencia today after the death toll from Spain’s devastating floods topped 150, with PM Pedro Sánchez announcing the region will be declared a disaster zone. My colleagues report on why the floods were so deadly.
GEORGIA OPPOSITION CALLS FOR PROTESTS ON MONDAY: Three opposition parties called for Georgians to hit the streets on Monday to protest against the disputed election results. The call came after research firm HarrisX, which carried out an exit poll for last weekend’s parliamentary election, said on Thursday that its analysis showed the ruling Georgian Dream party’s win was “statistically impossible.” Reuters has more.
WHAT’S THE OPPOSITE OF AN EU NEPO BABY? The European Central Bank has warned banks to be on their guard against cyberattacks from Russia and other authoritarian states. That same European Central Bank also employs the daughter of a pro-Russian candidate for Moldova’s presidency — Alexandr Stoianoglo — as part of its banking supervision technology team, report my colleagues Johanna Treeck and Carlo Boffa. (There is no suggestion that Corina Stoianoglo has acted improperly in her work.)
ITALIAN HACKING SCANDAL LATEST: A hacking scandal that has engulfed Italy is spilling over. The latest claims involve an alleged Israeli cyber operation against Russian targets, including President Vladimir Putin’s unidentified “right-hand man.” Read all the wild details here.