Greece and Europe in political upheaval
The Tempe train crash is expected to once again dominate Greece’s political agenda this week after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addressed the issue in an interview with Kathimerini’s Sunday edition.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1261922/greece-and-europe-in-political-upheaval
Mitsotakis: The new Courthouse and Museum of Marine Antiquities to change the image of Piraeus
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday visited the port city of Piraeus, the under construction Courthouse and the construction site of the new Museum of Marine Antiquities, “just two of the projects, which essentially contribute to changing the image of the Piraeus area.”
Independent MP Thraskia joins PASOK-Movement for Change parliamentary group
Independent MP Rania Thraskia that was elected with SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance ballot in 2023 and became independent after the developments in the party’s last Congress joined on Monday main opposition PASOK-Movement for Change parliamentary group.
Free accommodation in Athens for residents of Greek islands hurt by the earthquakes
The Municipality of Athens, in collaboration with the non-profit organization Airbnb.org, founded by Airbnb, will provide housing to residents of Santorini, Amorgos, Anafi and Ios, who are seeking temporary accommodation in Athens due to the intense seismic activity on their islands.
ATHEX: It’s higher and higher for the index
The Greek stock market continues to register new records, as on Monday it reported yet another 14-year high for its benchmark. It was not like that throughout the week’s first session though, as there were long spells when sellers had the upper hand, until the buyers showed more initiative. The day’s turnover was predictably lower, given the US holiday.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1261964/athex-its-higher-and-higher-for-the-index
KATHIMERINI: USA and Russia are bargaining while Europe is divided
TA NEA: Joint real estate ownership: How to cut the Gordian knot
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: European psycho-drama in Paris
RIZOSPASTIS: Blocking death cargoes from Lavrio to… Ukraine
KONTRA NEWS: Mitsotakis is sending military personnel in Ukraine as well
DIMOKRATIA: Where did you get the video from, Mr. Portosalte?
NAFTEMPORIKI: “e-noose” for the real estate market
DRIVING THE DAY: TALKS IN RIYADH
TRUMP NEGOTIATIONS BEGIN: Washington’s bilateral talks with Moscow over the future of Ukraine are set to begin today in Saudi Arabia.
Present: For the U.S., Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. For Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov (Elon Musk is salivating).
Absent: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who will head to Turkey instead, reports Veronika Melkozerova.
Also absent: European leaders. They had their own meeting Monday evening to deal with that very fact.
NO DECISION ON TROOPS FOR UKRAINE: And this time, they couldn’t even blame Viktor Orbán.
No Paris agreement: After 3.5 hours in the Elysée Palace, a hand-picked group of (mostly western) European leaders came up with no new joint ideas, squabbled over sending troops to Ukraine, and once again mouthed platitudes on aiding Kyiv and boosting defense spending, my colleagues Nicholas Vinocur and Victor Goury-Laffont report.
The core dispute was over whether to send troops to Ukraine if there was an agreement to end the war.
How we got here: Donald Trump all but axed Pax Americana when he announced plans to negotiate Ukraine’s future bilaterally with Moscow, while ruling out U.S. military backup. That means it’d be up to Europe to prevent Russia from attacking Ukraine again, assuming Trump manages to broker some sort of deal. (The FT’s Gideon Rachman cites unnamed European officials’ fears that the U.S. would pull back even more, from the Baltics or further west.)
Just to put a fine point on it: The Trump administration sent a questionnaire to European NATO countries asking them to spell out what they would be prepared to offer to enforce a peace agreement, as well as what they would expect from the U.S. But at the Paris summit of “the coalition of the invited,” as Tim Ross puts it, there was no consensus on the response.
In the yes-to-European-peacekeepers camp: France, which called the meeting.
In the pretend-yes camp: The United Kingdom. The country’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, among the leaders on Macron’s guest list, said the U.K. would send troops — if the U.S. helps with the peacekeeping force. Which Trump said he won’t do. (Plus, the British Army is a mess, POLITICO’s Stefan Boscia reports.)
In the ask-me-later camp: Germany, whose Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it would be “highly inappropriate” to discuss peacekeeping forces at this point. Given he’s expected to lose Germany’s Feb. 23 election, Scholz probably won’t have to address this issue even when it is appropriate by his standard. (Most of the other leaders who made statements fell in this category, including Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen and the Netherlands’ Dick Schoof.)
In the I-would-if-I-could camp: Poland. Prime Minister Donald Tusk ruled it out before even leaving Warsaw on Monday. “The French are far away so they can send soldiers to Ukraine; we’re close so we cannot,” said a senior official, noting Poland’s long borders with both Russia and Belarus.
In her own ask-me-later camp: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose Maserati pulled up 50 minutes late, as French media noted. She had yet to issue a statement or readout as of early this morning, so everyone was stuck reading her expressions in verbatim X posts from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President António Costa.
BABY STEPS: Tusk, speaking to reporters after the meeting, took pains to stress the leaders’ shared will to boost defense spending, both at the national and EU levels. He credited Meloni, the most Trump-friendly leader at the table, with suggesting that Europe treat the situation as an “opportunity.”
“I know that it may not sound particularly impressive, but it is really a very serious change,” Tusk said of the plan to use general EU funds for defense.
The view from outside: It’s less impressive, indeed, when you consider that the leaders least likely to embrace this idea weren’t invited. Balázs Orbán, a top political adviser to the Hungarian prime minister, dismissed the meeting as a “losers’ club,” and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico criticized Costa and von der Leyen for participating, saying they have “no mandate” as EU officials to discuss troop placements.
TRYING TO HOLD IT TOGETHER: Macron said on social media overnight that he had phoned both Trump and Zelenskyy after the meeting. Any lasting peace, he said, “must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians.”
Without evidence, Macron added: “We will work on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians. This is the key.”
WHAT DOES TRUMP WANT? The Telegraph newspaper has seen a leaked draft of the contract Team Trump presented to Zelenskyy, which not only demands $500 billion in minerals but covers infrastructure, oil and gas. The paper describes the extraordinary proposals as “terms normally imposed on aggressor states defeated in war,” which would see Ukraine give up a bigger share of its GDP than the reparations imposed on Germany at Versailles.
WHAT DOES PUTIN WANT? To be viewed by Washington as an equal.
NOT-SO SPECIAL K
KEITH KELLOGG, EUROPE’S SIDELINED LIFELINE: While Trump’s team meets with Putin’s reps in Riyadh, the guy the U.S. president supposedly put in charge of Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, will catch up with von der Leyen and Costa in Brussels.
That’s bad news for Kellogg and Brussels.
Priorities: Von der Leyen was initially supposed to meet with Kellogg on Monday. But she pushed him back by a day in favor of the Paris talks. (EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius met with him Monday evening instead.)
And honestly, who can blame her? Despite being appointed Trump’s Ukraine-Russia envoy, it’s Witkoff jetting off to Moscow and now Riyadh. And the retired lieutenant general’s reassuring rhetoric (and generally conventional operating procedure) seem increasingly out of touch with what his boss says.
Depends on what your definition of “at” is: Speaking to reporters at NATO Monday, Kellogg tried to reassure Europeans they would be “at the table” in Saudi Arabia despite, er, not being there. “If ‘at the table’ means that your views are heard, understood, transmitted, the answer is ‘absolutely,’” he said, per Euractiv.
Kellogg’s cold cereal: “The team is fully synced,” Kellogg said, dismissing concerns about his influence. There was even a conference call with the Saudi-bound negotiators after the Munich Security Conference, he volunteered.
Influence averted: Steve Bannon, Trump’s populist conscience, worried that Europe, the defense industry and specifically Kellogg would delude the U.S. president into getting stuck in a Ukraine-shaped quagmire, as my colleague Jamie Dettmer noted last month. (Kellogg has advocated U.S. military aid to Ukraine to keep pressure on Putin.) Bannon said he was lobbying hard to get Trump to stick to his pledge for a speedy end — and he appears to be winning.
Kyiv clings to Kellogg: Zelenskyy said he’ll take Kellogg to the front lines during a visit to Ukraine this week. And those harsh realities will be, as Kellogg put it, heard, understood, transmitted, he promised the NATO press corps. “They are going to come out of the Middle East, I will come out of Ukraine — we will go back to being synced up.”
RUBIO, TOO: Marco Rubio is Trump’s secretary of State in name only, reports POLITICO’s Nahal Toosi in this deep dive.
TRUMP WHISPERING
EUROPE’S PEACE OFFERINGS: GAS, CARS, GUNS. EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič flew to Washington on Monday with a suitcase packed full of carrots to head off a spiraling transatlantic trade war, Camille Gijs, Gabriel Gavin and Jordyn Dahl report this morning. They include buying more American gas and guns, lowering the EU’s 10 percent import tax on vehicles, and offering to team up against China. Not on the table (for now):easing off on Big Tech regulation.
HOW CAN THE EU INCREASE DEFENSE SPENDING? Spain’s Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo told POLITICO in an interview that the answer is a “no brainer”: common debt. Cuerpo said the European Commission’s proposal to bend the fiscal rules to allow more spending leeway won’t be enough, and “there is a clear case” for issuing common debt to finance “public goods.”
Scoop: Cuerpo also said Spain is renewing a push to unblock the long-stalled capital markets union, with Valencia set to host the launch of the “European Competitiveness Lab” on March 13. The idea is to set up a regulatory sandbox where member countries impatient with the CMU’s sluggish progress can band together on an ad-hoc basis to experiment with regulatory finance innovations, my Pro colleagues report.
MORE IDEAS: The centrist Renew Europe group in the European Parliament wants to open “exploratory talks” about EU membership with Norway and Iceland and “retaliate firmly against unfair U.S. tariffs,” among a litany of other requests for dealing with Trump in a letter to von der Leyen and Costa.
ELECTION INTEGRITY
DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING? Things were heated at a European Parliament committee hearing on the so-called democracy shield on Monday. Eliza Gkritsi writes in to report that the far right and the left clashed over who is a preferable master: Brussels or Moscow.
The far right claims attempts to fight foreign election interference are just the EU trying to silence political opinions in member countries.
The left (and the rest of the Parliament) see it as key to protecting European democracy from Russia —and, increasingly, the U.S.
Still learning: The hearing also showed just how difficult it is to implement the Digital Services Act to fight foreign interference. “I can’t share with you yet any lessons learned. It will be more lessons we are currently learning,” said Klaus Müller, the head of the Bonn-based Federal Network Agency, the institution tasked with implementing the DSA in Germany. Which holds an election this Sunday.
What even is the democracy shield?: It’s not clear. There’s no Commission proposal yet, though von der Leyen has touted it as a “dedicated structure for countering foreign information manipulation and interference.” The Parliament is working on its own report on what it should look like.
The TL;DR on the elections: There is a lot of evidence of foreign interference on social media platforms like X and TikTok. It’s difficult to assess the effect of such activity on the electorate. “There is no academic consensus on this,” said Marc-Antoine Brillant, head of France’s national democracy shield.
And back to the German election: Friedrich Merz, the frontrunner to succeed Olaf Scholz as chancellor, told POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook Podcast he’s “very worried” the EU is heading for another financial crisis. “It will be a sovereign debt crisis. We don’t know when it will come. We don’t know from where it will come from, but it will come,” he said.
STANDARDS SPLIT: The Parliament’s push for a common ethics body to police standards for elected officials in the wake of the Qatargate scandal could be in jeopardy. POLITICO’s Max Griera reports that centrist and left-wing MEPs are worried that the right-wing majority will obstruct its implementation despite an inter-institutional agreement last term.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
EU TO ISRAEL — NO GAZA-LAGO: The EU plans to tell Israel next week that Palestinians must be allowed to return to Gaza — despite Donald Trump’s plans to control the Mediterranean strip, according to a document viewed by Reuters’ Lili Bayer. The draft position ahead of the EU-Israel Association Council meeting on Feb. 24 also includes the EU’s commitment to help rebuild the destroyed territory.
METSOLA MUTED: Though European Parliament President Roberta Metsola proudly became the first EU leader to enter Gaza in over 10 years last week, she did not weigh in on the existential questions about its future. Asked about Trump’s plan to displace the population, her spokesperson told POLITICO their “focus” is on ensuring the cease-fire agreement “is a building block to a future of peace that guarantees Israel’s security and offers a real perspective for Palestinians living peacefully side by side.”
Socialists’ visit continues: Iratxe García, the MEP in charge of the Socialists and Democrats group, was more definitive during her weekend visit to the Rafah border crossing, saying, “Gaza is for Gazans … we cannot accept any type of different plan.” After visiting Israel on Monday, García’s tour continues today in Ramallah, where she’ll meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and Fatah party leader Mahmoud Aloul. She will also visit the Jalazone refugee camp with staff from UNRWA.
IN OTHER NEWS
GRAND COALITION BACK ON TABLE IN AUSTRIA: The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) have restarted government negotiations, local media reports, after the center-right ÖVP’s talks with the far-right Austrian Freedom Party collapsed last week.
Probably not available: Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s former boy wonder chancellor, who just received a $100 million investment in his Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity startup. More from DPA.
GENERATIONAL DIVIDE: A recent survey from the European Parliament published Monday shows that 40 percent of young people want the EU to focus on rising prices and the cost of living and about a third each on climate change and job creation.
In contrast, the latest Standard Eurobarometer published in November reveals that the overall EU population prioritizes security and defense and migration, indicating a gap between youth concerns about economic and environmental issues and the general public’s focus on security and migration challenges.
“UNPRECEDENTED SURGE” IN ATTACKS ON LGTBQ+: A growing number of European governments, particularly right-wing forces in Central and Eastern Europe, are labeling LGBTQ+ groups as agents of foreign influence in a bid to enforce a conservative agenda, according to the annual review of ILGA-Europe, the European association of LGBTQ+ NGOs, viewed by POLITICO’s Louise Guillot ahead of publication later this morning. This is fueling hate crimes and normalizing hate speech, the report found, noting an “unprecedented surge” in violence against LGBTQ+ people in 2024 across Europe.
POPE FRANCIS MOVES TO TIE UP HIS LEGACY: Pope Francis is seriously worried about his health after being hospitalized with severe bronchitis, and is rushing to tie up loose ends ahead of the battle to succeed him, reports POLITICO’s Ben Munster.