No-confidence debate comes to a head
Prime minister and opposition leaders will cross swords today before roll-call vote amid polarization.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1234924/no-confidence-debate-comes-to-a-head/
Kostas Karamanlis: I am not hiding behind parliamentary immunity
Former Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Kostas Karamanlis, during Parliament’s speech in the debate on censure motion against the government stressed that “I did not hide, I am not hiding, and I will not be hiding behind any parliamentary immunity. I have no parliamentary immunity.”
Air and rail safety agency chief resigns
The President of the National Aviation Investigation Agency And Railway Accidents And Transportation Safety (HARSIA) has resigned.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1234949/air-and-rail-safety-agency-chief-resigns/
With dust to persist through Friday, experts warn of health risks
High concentrations of Saharan dust that enveloped most of Greece on Wednesday are to remain Thursday and Friday, heaviest in the west and south of the country. Experts warn that bacteria, fungi and pollen can be embedded in African dust, further affecting vulnerable groups.
ATHEX: Slow decline for majority of stocks
Stocks continued their decline on Wednesday at the Greek stock market, led by banks, which had traders cashing in some of the last few weeks’ gains. Turnover was significantly reduced compared to Tuesday.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1234911/athex-slow-decline-for-majority-of-stocks/
KATHIMERINI: Countdown for LARCO
TA NEA: Former transport minister Karamanlis: What he said, what he didn’t say and what he meant
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Unrepentant
AVGI: Accomplices to crime
RIZOSPASTIS: Fight to keep nickel-producer LARCO open
KONTRA NEWS: New wave of revelations regarding the Tempi rail-crash
DIMOKRATIA: Vile show in parliament
NAFTEMPORIKI: “Swap” of treasury bills with state bonds
NEW COOL KID IN TOWN: DEFENSE POLICY
DEFENSE MINISTERS MEET NEXT MONTH AMID GROWING UNEASE: The EU’s defense ministers will meet on April 22 in Luxembourg, two EU diplomats and one EU official told Playbook and my defense colleague Jacopo Barigazzi. They will join foreign affairs ministers, who were already set to gather in Luxembourg.
Si vis pacem, para bellum: If you want peace, prepare for war, the Latin saying goes. The extra meeting symbolizes the growing sense of urgency in Brussels to step up on defense, especially with the U.S. hesitant to continue funding Ukraine and the possible return of Donald Trump to the presidency.
**A message from TikTok: In a bumper year for elections, TikTok is working hard to keep our platform a creative, safe, and civil place for our community. In the European Union, we are launching 27 in-app Election Centres, one for each member state, to help people find authorative and trusted information.**
Defense bonds momentum: EU leaders and their entourages went home after last week’s European Council summit with a growing sense that Russia must be defeated in its war on Ukraine, as Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda told us — and that support is growing for defense bonds (issuing joint debt for military spending).
Getting warmer: “More and more member states are warming up to the idea,” one EU official said. “If Germany moves, the Netherlands will move too.”
Nein 1: That’s unlikely to happen anytime soon, said Nicolai von Ondarza of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “Looking from Berlin, it would be quite tough to do a shift,” he told Playbook. Any move would have to come from the liberal FDP party, which strongly opposes the idea.
Nein 2: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday also poured cold water on using the EU’s budget to fund defense and military projects (first reported by the FT). “New proposals are being made every day,” Scholz, a former finance minister, said when asked whether the EU budget could be used for defense. “I’ve never seen anything likewise in Europe before, and I’ve been watching for quite a long time. So I don’t believe it.” POLITICO Defense Pros can read more here.
Pipeline full of initiatives: A document translating last week’s EUCO into concrete actions, dated March 25 and seen by Jacopo, sets out the next steps to ramp up financial and military support for Ukraine. EU top diplomat Josep Borrell “is expected to present a proposal for joint procurement initiatives (lethal and non-lethal) by April 2024,” according to the document. Borrell will also “further intensify efforts” to broker a deal on the next tranche of €500 million within the European Peace Facility, which Hungary is blocking. Borrell and EU countries will also further discuss security commitments to finalize the work on an EU-Ukraine joint statement.
Looking at you, Iran: Ministers at the Foreign Affairs Council on April 22 “may consider” expanding the Moscow-Tehran drone sanctions regime “to include the possible transfer of Iranian missiles to Russia,” according to the document mentioned above.
And speaking of Iran: China’s illicit purchases of its oil are indirectly financing the recent attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, impairing global trade flows and damaging Beijing’s own interests in the process, according to Western intelligence officials. My colleague Matt Karnitschnig has more.
MEANWHILE, ON THE GROUND IN UKRAINE: Russia may have used a UMPB D-30, a new type of guided aerial bomb, to strike Kharkiv, the head of the regional police Volodymyr Tymoshko said.
Frontline fears: Ukrainian lawmakers fear the army and local authorities are not digging trenches quickly enough or building sufficiently formidable defensive fortifications to withstand an expected Russian offensive, reports POLITICO’s Jamie Dettmer from Kyiv.
NOW HEAR THIS: James Rubin, head of the Global Engagement Centre within the U.S. State Department, told POLITICO’s Power Play Podcast that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be more comfortable with sharing information about the state of the war. “Some days, war reporters report things that aren’t necessarily in the interest of Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” he said, but that’s important “in a democracy that we hope and increasingly see Ukraine becoming.”
ARE EU READY FOR UKRAINE ACCESSION?
UKRAINE LOVE HITS REALPOLITIK: The EU remains fully behind Ukraine … except when it hurts European farmers. That’s the main takeaway after Wednesday’s compromise over whether to grant Ukraine’s vast farming sector another year of emergency, no-strings-attached access to the bloc.
Death by compromise: A last-minute push from Poland and France to impose further restrictions on Ukrainian products led to a compromise which will hurt the country’s desperately needed income. One EU diplomat said it sends “all the wrong signals to Moscow, as well as to Kyiv.”
No spare change: The Belgian EU presidency compromise would cost Ukraine €331 million in lost trade revenue, according to estimates from the European Commission. That’s less than what Paris and Warsaw had initially sought, but more than Ukraine can spare, argues Kyiv. “Any restrictions mean less economic revenue for the country and therefore less support for our defense. And we still have to find that money somewhere,” Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi said.
Reality bites: Ukrainian farmers could only wish for their EU counterparts’ problems, but “they don’t have the luxury of protesting,” Solskyi said.
Not there yet: The new compromise still needs the backing of the European Parliament and the Commission, and there’s a risk Ukraine’s emergency access to the EU market won’t get renewed before it expires in early June.
Taste of the future: The current squabble is only a taste of what’s to come when negotiations on admitting the former Soviet breadbasket into the EU start in earnest. “This is a harsh reality check for EU solidarity, and what is worse: a bleak outlook for what EU accession will look like,” the diplomat mentioned above said. Our colleagues Camille Gijs and Bartosz Brzeziński have this smart take on why the EU’s discord over Ukraine’s grain spells trouble for Kyiv’s accession hopes.
EU FLOATS DRASTIC CHANGE TO CASH FOR REGIONS AHEAD OF ENLARGEMENT: The European Commission is considering a radical change to the way some EU budget money is doled out by attaching reform conditions in return for cash, according to a report seen by my colleague Gregorio Sorgi.
Carrots and sticks: Brussels envisaged tight conditions on its post-pandemic cash pot, under which funding to member countries is linked to adopting reforms. The Commission proposed adapting this model to cohesion funding, the pile of cash used to boost growth in poorer regions in Europe.
Getting ready for enlargement: The EU is rethinking its cohesion policy as the bloc is preparing for the possible entry of Ukraine and the Western Balkans, where much of this cash would be used, Gregorio reports.
EUROPEAN ELECTION SEASON
NEW COLLEGE, NEW PORTFOLIOS: EU election campaigning is getting underway and it seems everyone is throwing around ideas for new commissioner portfolios. Here are some of the ideas and who pitched them, courtesy of top colleague Eddy Wax …
Commissioner for security and defense (Ursula von der Leyen and EPP manifesto) … Commissioner for fisheries (EPP manifesto)… Commissioner for future generations (Alberto Alemanno) … Commissioner for enforcement (Renew Europe) … Commissioner for SMEs (EPP group)… Commissioner for sanctions (MEP Andrius Kubilius) …Commissioner for gender equality (Party of European Socialists)… Commissioner for strategic autonomy (EU battery lobby)… Commissioner for wellbeing (European Policy Centre) … Commissioner for urban matters (Eurocities) … Commissioner for water — though unclear if it’s for still or sparkling (European Economic and Social Committee) … Commissioner for allocation of commissioner portfolios (MLex’s Sam Clark) … Commissioner for space (POLITICO’s Josh Posaner) … Commissioner for hindsight …(European Parliament’s Radoslav Šoth) … Commissioner for just transition (Zero Waste Europe’s Esra Tat).
AI ARCHITECT DROPS OUT: Romanian Dragoş Tudorache won’t run for another term as an MEP, he told POLITICO’s Gian Volpicelli. Tudorache, one of the lawmakers who penned the EU’s new rules to rein in artificial intelligence, plans to stay in Brussels, where he previously worked for the Commission.His Renew group colleague Alin Mituța is also out of the race. “I will probably continue in EU institutions from another position,” Mituța said.
IN OTHER NEWS
MOLDOVA TO ALLOW PRO-KREMLIN CANDIDATES: Moldova’s highest court ruled that candidates from a pro-Russian political party headed by a fugitive billionaire can stand in the country’s presidential election later this year. Šejla Ahmatović has the details.
FROM THE EX FILES: Gordon Sondland, who served as Donald Trump’s EU ambassador before becomking a key witness in his first impeachment over frozen Kyiv aid, registered last week as a foreign agent of Ukraine and the EU, according to U.S. filings. Caitlin Oprysko has more.
BOSNIAN PRESIDENT MAKES PLEA FOR EU ACCESSION: Denis Bećirović, Bosniak member of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, paid a visit to the Bosnian Embassy in Brussels earlier this week to discuss the country’s path into the EU, as well issues the Benelux diaspora is facing. He argued “Bosnia is still functioning well” and “making great progress towards the EU.”
BRIDGE COLLAPSE LATEST: The collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge Tuesday after a collision with a massive container ship could have been mitigated with simple “fenders” that have been standard issue on new bridges since the 1990s, my Stateside colleagues report.