Sea parks an assertion of sovereignty
Monday’s announcement by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis establishing two new national marine parks – one in the Ionian Sea and another in the Southern Cyclades in the Aegean – is a sign of Greece’s resolution not to leave Turkey play the map game alone.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/environment/1276002/sea-parks-an-assertion-of-sovereignty
A hot two weeks in Parliament
Starting Tuesday, MPs will debate two hot topics – the Tempe railway disaster and the farm subsidies scandal – and things are certain to get heated. On Tuesday, Parliament will debate whether to send former transport minister Kostas A. Karamanlis to court on a charge of dereliction of duty, a misdemeanor. Next Monday and Tuesday, MPs will debate the government’s proposal for a committee to investigate the agency responsible for disbursing EU aid, going all the way back to the agency’s founding in 1998.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1275995/a-hot-two-weeksin-parliament
First sentencing in OPEKEPE case for illegal subsidies to cattle farmers in Fthiotida, Central Greece
The one-member Misdemeanors Court of Athens served 13 defendants with jail sentences ranging from 6 to 40 months over the fraudulent allocation of EU funds through the OPEKEPE agency, on Monday.
Finance ministry amendment will eliminate series of charges for ATM transactions
The government is preparing legislation that will eliminate a series of fees charged for transactions using ATMs, National Economy and Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis announced on Monday, saying the relevant amendment will be tabled with the draft bill on the National Customs Code currently being discussed by a parliamentary committee.
ATHEX: Bourse takes respite ahead of milestone
The growth momentum of the Greek bourse eased on Monday, with a mixed session that may have seen the majority of stocks grow but the benchmark came off Friday’s 15-year highs, probably preparing for the final push toward the 2,000-point mark. The decline of daily turnover to the lowest mark of the last couple of weeks may point to reduced interest in blue chip sales, or to some slowdown in the market ahead of the summer holidays, traditionally associated with August.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1275985/athex-bourse-takes-respite-ahead-of-milestone
KATHIMERINI: Crash test with marine parks
TA NEA: Marine parks and… tension with Turkey ahead
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Migration Minister Plevris follows racist tactics as if Trump was his teacher
RIZOSPASTIS: Employers and the government are sending workers to work amid the heatwave
KONTRA NEWS: Finance MInister Pierrakakis ends vile bank charges
DIMOKRATIA: New Democracy executives involved in the scandal of OPEKEPE
NAFTEMPORIKI: Tax office to auction real estate assets
DRIVING THE DAY: MINISTERS’ MIGRATION MUDDLE
HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE MIGRATION? Only with a hardline stance, Danish Immigration Minister Kaare Dybvad will tell his European counterparts as they gather in Copenhagen today to hash out issues like the EU’s proposal on a unified deportations policy and “new solutions” to stem the flow of illegal migrants into the bloc.
Stuck in the middle with EU: Any EU way forward on migration needs to satisfy hardliners like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Poland’s Donald Tusk as well as left-leaning parties that accuse the Commission of pandering to the far right by embracing a crackdown.
Playing a dangerous game: Any suggestion the Commission should back off on migration to avoid feeding far-right narratives is “illogical on a level I can’t comprehend” and would represent “the most dangerous path politically,” Dybvad, who hails from Denmark’s left-leaning but hard on migration Social Democrats, told Playbook in an interview.
“It’s the other way around. The far right has gotten big because we haven’t solved migration problems,” Dybvad said, adding that “if we don’t solve this … then we won’t be able to make any meaningful progressive policy” in the EU.
On the agenda: Interior and justice ministers, along with senior officials from EU agencies and the U.N.’s UNHCR and International Organization for Migration, will discuss the Commission’s proposal on “returns” (translation: deportations) for migrants who are denied permission to stay in the EU. Dybvad said he’s hoping for “some kind of understanding” on that proposal today. He reckons there’s “if not support, then at least understanding” of the plan’s aims from the majority of countries.
“Return hubs”: A tougher nut to crack will be the plan to set up “return hubs” in non-EU countries, a la Italy’s fraught deal with Albania or the U.K.’s short-lived Rwanda plan, where migrants would be held outside the EU while awaiting deportation. It’s dubious politically and legally, but Dybvad said he’d like to “at least have an open discussion about it” today. While he’s hoping for a political deal on the returns proposal during Denmark’s presidency, which ends in December, he said any agreement on return hubs would take “a bit longer” due to its sensitivity.
The Zugspitze group: Six hardline countries met on Germany’s Zugspitze mountain peak on Friday to hash out their stance on a tougher migration policy. They called for more deportations to Syria and Afghanistan and beefing up of EU border agency Frontex, as well as to “significantly broaden” partnerships with non-EU countries to combat illegal immigration. That conversation will continue today, Dybvad said, adding that the support base (which includes big-hitters France and Germany) means there’s “real room” for agreeing on the returns policy.
Who’s in charge here? The Commission took flak from capitals earlier this month after migration chief Magnus Brunner’s bungled visit to Libya to discuss tackling the flow of migrants from the country. Dybvad backed Brunner, saying it’s “quite normal that commissioners visit countries” and that Brunner didn’t take any “controversial steps” with the visit.
Now read this: Brunner told my colleague Nette Nöstlinger he’s still ready to work with Libya despite the diplomatic debacle. He said the EU “must also engage” with the country over fears Russia will use weaponized migration from Libya against Brussels. Read the interview here.
IN THE TRADE WAR WAITING ROOM
READING THE TEA LEAVES: The clock is ticking down to Aug. 1, as the EU waits to see if it will enter into a full-blown trade war with the U.S. — or at least be hit with a 30 percent tariff on all exports. As the rest of Brussels heads off on its summer vacation, brows are glistening with sweat in the Berlaymont while officials attempt to divine the latest signals (or lack thereof) coming out of Washington.
Exhibit A: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration is more concerned with the quality of trade agreements than their timing. He told CNBC that the looming Aug. 1 deadline will “put more pressure on those countries to come with better agreements.”
Ignorance is bliss … right? “We don’t always know what Trump wants — that is part of the issue,” an EU diplomat told Morning Trade’s Koen Verhelst. Brussels’ negotiators are still trying to figure out whether a draft agreement that was about to be announced two weeks ago is still the jumping-off point for talks, and if the EU is facing tariffs of 10, 15 or 20 percent — or 30, based on that infamous Trump letter Brussels couldn’t quite believe it was getting.
Crystal ball away, bazooka out: In the meantime, France and Germany are putting pressure on the Commission to turn the screws on Washington. As my colleague Giorgio Leali reports, Paris wants European negotiators to “make it clear that we’re ready to press the red button” if Trump refuses to agree to acceptable terms. A French official said Brussels should recognize it is dealing with an ally who itself is “raising tensions in a trade war it started.”
As for Berlin, it raised the possibility of using the EU’s “trade bazooka” when Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič debriefed the bloc’s ambassadors in Brussels on Friday, my Morning Trade colleagues report.
BIG IN JAPAN: Stuck in the middle of fractious trade talks with the U.S. and a tense summit with China on Thursday, the EU’s top brass might get a bit of a breather when they hit Japan this week for Wednesday’s EU-Japan summit.
Peace in the Pacific: “There is no area where we do not cooperate on and where we are not like-minded,” one EU official gushed to my Morning Trade colleagues. The summit will see the formal launch of a “competitiveness alliance” between the two, with both economies linking up their industrial policy more closely in the face of Chinese overcapacity and U.S. tariffs, a second official said.
The two sides, which already have a free trade deal, could discuss more alignment on public procurement, food safety rules and regulatory simplification, the official said.
RETALIATION BY THE NUMBERS: POLITICO’s Lucia Mackenzie crunched the numbers on the EU’s latest proposal for a retaliatory package, which would affect €72 billion worth of imports if brought into effect, to see which goods are most likely to get caught in the crossfire and which sectors may manage to escape unscathed. While the proposal would hit aircraft, vehicles and medical appliances hardest, there are wins for health care, transport and agri-food.
DEFENSE
HAPPENING WEDNESDAY: Ukrainian and Russian negotiators will gather in Turkey to hold their first negotiations in seven weeks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last night. Russian state media confirmed that a team would travel to Istanbul. Write-up here.
RAMSTEIN READOUT: The U.K. and Germany pledged more air defense for Ukraine as they hosted an online meeting of the 57 “Ramstein format” countries Monday. London and Berlin, which took over chairing the group from Washington after Trump returned to the White House, announced that Germany would finance €170 million in U.K.-led procurement of air defense ammunition for Ukraine. Germany will pay for and donate 220,000 rounds of 35-millimeter ammunition for the Gepard anti-aircraft gun system and procure long-range Ukrainian-made drones.
What about the Patriots? German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Ukraine will receive five Patriot air defense systems “as soon as possible,” saying somewhat cryptically that Berlin would “contribute” to making this happen. My Berlin Playbook colleagues have the rundown of where the Patriots might come from.
Time is ticking: Trump gave Vladimir Putin a 50-day deadline for a ceasefire earlier this month. The U.K.’s Defence Secretary John Healey said: “We need to step up in turn to a 50-day drive to arm Ukraine on the battlefield.” Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte used the meeting to plug his agreement with Trump that allows Europeans to buy American weapons and donate them to Kyiv.
TURKEY ORDER INCOMING: Europe’s defense industry could soon see a boost as Turkey is poised to announce a preliminary deal for a multibillion-dollar order of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets in the coming days, the Wall Street Journal reported.
GERMAN SPY CHIEF’S RUSSIAN ATTACKS WARNING: Russia’s spying and hybrid attacks on Germany have grown significantly this year, the country’s military counterintelligence chief Martina Rosenberg warned. She said the number of cases in which Russian involvement is suspected has doubled over the first half of this year, and the approach is “more massive and also more aggressive.” Koen Verhelst has more.
Right on cue: Russian-sponsored propaganda engines spewed reams of content designed to divide public opinion and amplify disinformation in the weeks leading up to the European Parliament’s no-confidence vote against Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier this month. That’s per the findings of a confidential study by disinformation researchers presented to the European Commission earlier this month (and seen by my colleague Mathieu Pollet). Full details here.
MOLE HUNTING: Ukraine’s state security service launched a series of raids on the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau on Monday as part of a sweeping investigation into suspected collusion with Russian spies, Veronika Melkozerova reports. The SBU alleges that one of the top detectives at the anti-corruption agency and another elite officer at the bureau were Russian moles. Both were detained.
PRO-PUTIN CONDUCTOR CANNED: A planned concert in Italy by pro-Putin conductor Valery Gergiev has been canceled after a political outcry. It would have been his first concert in the EU since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began three years ago.
IN OTHER NEWS
FOREIGN MINISTERS, COMMISSIONER LAHBIB CONDEMN ISRAEL OVER GAZA CONDITIONS: The foreign ministers of 28 countries, among them 20 EU members, in a joint statement condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians” in Gaza. The statement, which was also signed by European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Hadja Lahbib, came after over 100 people seeking aid were reported killed by Israeli gunfire in Gaza over the weekend.
In response, Israel’s foreign ministry said it “rejects the joint statement published by a group of countries, as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas.”
Who signed: Commissioner Lahbib plus Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K., Norway, Japan, Iceland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Who didn’t: EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas is a notable absentee, along with the foreign ministers of Germany, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Write-up here.