Cyprus issues counter-Navtex in dispute over Greece-Cyprus power link
Cyprus issued a counter-Navtex on Wednesday in response to a Turkish navigational warning concerning survey work by the French vessel Abeille Marengo for the planned electricity interconnector between Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. In its notice, issued by the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Larnaca at 6 am UTC, Cyprus said the Turkish warning had not been coordinated with the relevant Cypriot authorities. It said the research activities to be conducted by the Abeille Marengo within Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone and continental shelf had been authorized under license 05/2026 and announced in an earlier Cypriot navigational warning, numbered 345/26. The Cypriot response follows a similar move by Greece, which issued its own counter-Navtex, numbered 1441/26, on Wednesday through the Irakleion station.
PM Mitsotakis to highlight affordable energy and European competitiveness at Dublin summit
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday will travel to Dublin to attend the 9th European Political Community (EPC) Summit and the informal meeting of the European Council. Mitsotakis is expected to highlight Europe’s competitiveness as a matter of security and prosperity, stressing the need to strengthen Europe’s presence in technology and Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on innovation, investment and the removal of barriers within the single market. He is also expected to focus on the need to ensure affordable energy and diversify supply sources, highlighting Greece’s role as an energy and transit hub in the wider region.
Deputy minister resigns following claims over daughter’s university entry
A junior cabinet minister in Greece’s conservative government has lost his job following allegations that his daughter benefitted unfairly from fictitious sporting success to secure a prized place in university. Government officials said Thursday that Lazaros Tsavdaridis stepped down from his position as deputy development minister, and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis accepted his resignation. Press reports had earlier claimed that the 56-year-old lawyer’s daughter was able to enter university after high school using a bonus provided for top athletes, allegedly without actually participating in the sporting events she was supposed to have. Greece has a highly competitive university entry exam system. Tsavdaridis, who held his cabinet position since March 2025, had denied any wrongdoing.
Over 1 in 2 taxpayers declare under €10,000 in annual income
Over one in two taxpayers declare an annual personal taxable income of less than €10,000, reflecting the large income inequalities in Greek economy. At the same time, total income declared to the tax authorities set a new record, reaching €115.93 billion in 2025, an increase of approximately €9.9 billion from 2024. The increase in declared income by 9.3% is one of the main findings of the 2025 tax returns, which concern the income of 2024. However, behind the spectacular increase in total amounts, the distribution of income reveals a different picture, as more than 4.7 million individuals have zero or less than €10,000 in individual taxable income.
ATHEX: Third day of growth for benchmark
The Euronext Athens (ATHEX) general index closed at 2,656.13 points, adding 0.53% to Tuesday’s 2,642.07 points. The large-cap FTSE-25 index also expanded 0.53% to end at 6,823.67 points.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1321065/athex-third-day-of-growth-for-benchmark
KATHIMERINI: Perfect storm hits energy prices
TA NEA: 400-euro subsidy: who will get it, who will miss out
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Greece and Spain hit the streets to protest against the housing crisis
RIZOSPASTIS: No complacency! The government has been exposed for the bargaining of sovereignty rights
KONTRA NEWS: The government must tell the truth about France’s Note Verbale for the power cable
DIMOKRATIA: Hypocrisy regarding the de facto legitimization of Turkish claims
NAFTEMPORIKI: Investments worth more than 10 bln in data centers
DRIVING THE DAY
EUROPE’S MOST HATED SUMMIT? More than 50 leaders and their delegations will descend on Dublin today for the latest European Political Community summit — but some have soured on the forum and hope it’ll die when France gets a new president next year, diplomats and officials told Playbook’s Sebastian Starcevic.
Recall: The EPC was French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative, launched following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But while the gathering attracts a cast of political heavyweights — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and British PM Andy Burnham are among those attending this time — some have come to see it as a talking shop, as our somewhat depressing report from last year’s summit in Copenhagen laid bare.
Kill it with fire: A European diplomat told my colleague Jacopo Barigazzi that leaders are weary of the gathering, which is one reason capitals weren’t ecstatic about Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal to form a European Security Council (which would add yet another forum to the calendar). Another diplomat told me they hope the EPC won’t survive Macron’s departure from office after the French presidential runoff in May.
Not so fast: The Elysée disputes the criticism, with one official arguing the EPC has become a diplomatic cornerstone and will be here to stay in the post-Macron era, our man in Paris Giorgio Leali tells us. And an EU official told Sebastian the EPC has proven its worth as a forum for important discussions. Summits are scheduled through the end of 2028, with meetings in Switzerland, Greece, Azerbaijan and Latvia.
Fabrice Leggeri, an MEP with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, pushed back on speculation that the far-right front-runner would kill the forum if she becomes president: The EPC is not “automatically a waste of time,” he said, even if there are plenty of “boring, useless, endless meetings” at EU level.
What’s on the menu today: Macron wants to launch an initiative to define the key principles for the future of European security, Giorgio reports. Ukraine will remain at the heart of the talks, an EU official told us, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attending.
There will be opening remarks from Zelenskyy, European Council President António Costa and the Irish leader Micheál Martin, another EU official said. A diplomat briefed on the agenda told us the joint plenary session will focus on Ukraine and European security, before leaders split into roundtables with two themes: 1. competitiveness, AI, digital and energy transitions and bringing down energy prices; and 2. defending European democracy.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Macron will also co-chair a meeting of the coalition against drug trafficking. And leaders will issue a joint declaration on migration, two European diplomats told Sebastian. They’ll close out the day with a dinner at the National Gallery of Ireland.
Not on the menu: Enlargement. The EPC was never conceived as a venue for discussing EU membership, and the topic has mostly stayed off its formal agenda despite a push from Turkey and others in recent years, a senior diplomat from an enlargement candidate country told Sebastian — though they predicted it will come up on the margins.
Who won’t be there: Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, both facing political turmoil at home, will skip Dublin. So will Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who is a couple weeks out from an election.
This week’s main event is tomorrow’s informal European Council, when leaders will grapple with who should speak for Europe in peace talks between Ukraine and Russia and hold their first major discussion on AI. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will also hold bilateral talks with several leaders — including Macron — as soon as today to advance discussions over the EU’s seven-year, €2 trillion budget.
BIG AND BREAKING
TODAY IN MOSCOW: Donald Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are heading to Russia to ask Vladimir Putin to allow European representatives to join future Ukraine peace talks. The Americans will then head to Dublin to meet Zelenskyy to push the agenda forward, Tim Ross reports.
Ouch: “If Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation,” Kushner said yesterday. Tim’s analysis of the Abu Dhabi talks is well worth your time.
LAGARDE FOR THE ELYSÉE? Departing ECB chief Christine Lagarde would attract as much support in France’s presidential contest as center-right hopeful Edouard Philippe if she were to run, according to a poll commissioned by POLITICO.
SHAKE-UP AT NVIDIA: The tech giant is preparing to remove its CEO Jensen Huang after he had two affairs, including with a businesswoman suspected of spying for Beijing, the WSJ reported last night.
A NEW FRONT FOR HYBRID ATTACKS? Hundreds of schools in Italy, the U.K. and Ireland have been disrupted by bomb threats.
WE NEED AN EMERGENCY PLAN: Finland and Estonia want an EU-wide system to respond to serious AI incidents, according to a letter seen by POLITICO’s Pieter Haeck. It comes ahead of Friday’s first EU leaders’ summit dedicated to AI.
SPAIN’S EMPTY SUMMIT SEAT
HAVE MADRID’S ECB HOPES TAKEN A HIT? Pedro Sánchez’s absence from the European stage this month could deal a blow to his country’s ambition to install Pablo Hernández de Cos at the head of the European Central Bank, three EU diplomats told Playbook’s Gregorio Sorgi.
De Cos is competing against former Dutch central banker Klaas Knot to succeed Christine Lagarde as president of the ECB. Sánchez and his Dutch counterpart Rob Jetten are lobbying fellow leaders to back their candidates, but the diplomats think Sánchez’s focus on the election campaign at home could weaken Hernández de Cos’ leadership bid.
Sánchez still hasn’t decided whether he’ll attend the European Council summit in Brussels on Nov. 26-27, where leaders are expected to designate the new ECB president — just two days before the Spanish election. As we said above, Sánchez is planning to skip tomorrow’s gathering in Dublin, where leaders will broach the ECB race on the sidelines. (It’ll be one of the topics Merz and Macron talk about in their bilateral, alongside the EU budget, according to an Elysée official.)
“He won’t be in the room when the ECB leadership will be decided,” said one EU diplomat granted anonymity to speak about the confidential process.
Spain’s Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo has dismissed those concerns, telling reporters this week that “we need to decouple the timetable for the ECB presidency [and other top jobs] from the Spanish elections.” A Spanish government official said the ECB leadership “has been under negotiation for weeks. Whether or not Sánchez is in Dublin this week would have no impact.”
Package deal: Leaders will have to carefully balance which countries get which ECB roles because other jobs on the executive board are coming up for grabs soon, Gregorio points out. Germany’s Isabel Schnabel and Ireland’s Philip Lane, the chief economist, are both leaving.
20-SECOND PLAYBOOK PRIMER
So leaders might not like the European Political Community — and some say it might not last much longer — but how much do you know about it? Set up in 2022 based on a proposal by Emmanuel Macron, the EPC is a forum to discuss and coordinate on issues such as security, energy and migration. Its members are all the EU countries plus the main EU institutions and around 20 others, including the U.K., Turkey and Ukraine. There are two meetings a year, one in an EU capital, one in a non-EU capital.
TROUBLE IN PARLIAMENT
UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS: Senior MEPs have warned European Parliament President Roberta Metsola about dwindling committee attendance and worsening behavior by MEPs, which they say could deter European Commission officials and outside experts from appearing before lawmakers, Max Griera writes.
Conference of Committee Chairs head Bernd Lange told Metsola in a letter seen by Playbook that attendance has been “gradually diminishing” since Covid-19, and “this low attendance risks diminishing the relevance and quality of the debates … and has the potential to negatively affect the overall engagement with the committee’s interlocutors.”
Lange also warned that some MEPs’ conduct is getting worse, which “can at times descend into behaviors that are not conducive to our institution’s dignity.”
Not the whole story: The letter was originally sent in July. When POLITICO requested a copy through official channels via a freedom of information access request, we received a redacted version. Blacked out was Lange’s acknowledgment that Metsola had “rightly pointed out” the same problems at an earlier meeting with committee chairs.
Why? Parliament Secretary-General Alessandro Chiocchetti, a close ally of Metsola, claimed disclosure could “seriously affect, prolong, or complicate” internal discussions, expose them to “external pressure and undue influence,” and jeopardize the Parliament’s ability to reach “the most impartial and appropriate decision.” Yet those same concerns, and Metsola’s role in raising them, were already recorded in the publicly available minutes of an earlier meeting.
The administration’s resistance to giving access to documents is a long-standing issue. “The Parliament rarely takes into consideration public interest and often misuses exceptions with document requests, especially if they are related to MEPs,” said Transparency International chief Nick Aiossa. Parliament says it followed the transparency regulation.
DASHBOARD
One issue is looming particularly large in Spain in the run-up to the general election: affordable housing. Lucia Mackenzie and Aitor Hernández-Morales have the full story on just how bad the crisis is, and where the Spanish stats sit in relation to the rest of Europe.
6 MORE THINGS GETTING US TALKING
RUSSIA’S GRAVE SECRET: A Russian man was sentenced to 14 years in prison in September for photographing soldiers’ graves — but the Kremlin is finding it increasingly difficult to suppress the true toll of its war in Ukraine, Daria Zakharova writes.
NATO BY ZOOM? With allies reluctant to commit to a 2027 NATO summit in Tirana, Albania says it could delay the gathering by a year — or even host it online.
OFFICIALLY OPEN: Even Finnish President Alexander Stubb jumped on the meme about his country’s embassy in Canberra (read this by our colleagues Down Under if you’ve got no idea what that means), posting a selfie with Anthony Albanese at COP31 yesterday. “I have confirmed to the Prime Minister of Australia that the Finnish Embassy in Canberra is open,” Stubb wrote, possibly killing the joke forever.
TAKING AIM AT TIKTOK: Pedro Sánchez’s government is moving to block the platform over allegations that it failed to tackle child sexual abuse material.
GAME OVER? Europe’s gaming industry says the EU’s Digital Fairness Act could “cripple” the sector by cracking down on in-game spending.
CHEMISTRY LESSON: China’s Vice Minister of Commerce Ling Ji meets EU trade chief Ditte Juul Jørgensen in Brussels today, with chemicals topping the agenda. Morning Trade has more for Pro subscribers.