PM Mitsotakis pledges support for Greek shipping industry at ‘Posidonia 2024’ exhibition; unveils ship registration app
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addressed the opening ceremony of the maritime exhibition “Posidonia 2024” at the Metropolitan Expo exhibition center on Monday, emphasizing his unwavering support for Greek shipowners “in every aspect of the shipping industry, from the green transition to the safety of ports and shipyards.”
SYRIZA leader Kasselakis publishes wealth declaration during Thessaloniki speech
Stefanos Kasselakis’ release of a one-page summary of his financial situation has prompted the government to request further clarification on his financial details.
Parole for Golden Dawn founder Nikos Michaloliakos revoked
The founder of the neonazi criminal organisation Golden Dawn, Nikos Michaloliakos, is to return to prison after a Lamia Appeals Justices’ Council on Monday ruled that his release on parole should be revoked. The appellate judges adopted the recommendation of the public prosecutor and reversed a decision by a Misdemeanour Court Judges Council for his conditional release from prison.
https://www.amna.gr/en/article/824076/Parole-for-Golden–Dawn-founder-Nikos-Michaloliakos-revoked-
Tourism Ministry offers assurances over bankrupt German tour operator
Greece is doing everything in its power to assure the return of foreign travelers who came to the country with tour operator FTI, the Tourism Ministry said on Monday, hours after the German firm filed for bankruptcy.
ATHEX: Rebound at Athinon Ave, on low trade
The Greek bourse recovered on Monday from its week of losses to show some healthy gains for the majority of stocks and the benchmark at Athinon Avenue on a day with significantly reduced turnover, the lowest in a week. The question now is whether this rebound can be sustained, as the summer with the biggest corporate dividends in a decade has started.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1240510/athex-rebound-at-athinon-ave-on-low-trade
KATHIMERINI: Last stretch for the pre-election period with talk about politicians’ wealth origin
TA NEA: Housing Program “Spiti Mou 2”: Behold its secrets
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: Fireproof regulation: Individual responsibility and governmental irresponsibility
AVGI: From where does your wealth stem, Mr. Mitsotakis?
RIZOSPASTIS: Last stretch to reinforce the Greek Communist Party at the upcoming elections
KONTRA NEWS: 31,000 postal votes have been lost
DIMOKRATIA: Fireproof regulation is illegal
NAFTEMPORIKI: Triple message by the shipping community
DRIVING THE DAY: MICHEL’S REVENGE
TWO PRESIDENTS, ONE WINNER? Is European Council President Charles Michel on a mission to exact revenge on his nemesis Ursula von der Leyen, who’s gunning for a second term at the head of the European Commission?
Sofa, so bad: The pair have spent years one-upping each other, but the fractious relationship could be about to reach an explosive conclusion — with major consequences for the EU’s next leadership team.
Beware the ides of Mich: Word around town is that the Belgian could leverage his role as the official coordinator of the post-election top jobs talks at the European Council to blow up von der Leyen’s hopes of a second term as Commission president.
Michel: Impossible: “It is driving everyone crazy, because his game is so obvious: making von der Leyen stumble and dreaming of his own top job,” one EU official told my colleagues Barbara Moens and Jacopo Barigazzi in their must-read piece this morning.
In the game of musical chairs that’s about to begin, some say that Michel is angling to replace the Spanish Socialist Josep Borrell as the EU’s foreign policy chief. But the Belgian insists he’s 100 percent focused on his job as EUCO president and “uniting” Europe’s leaders. He’s speaking to five of them today by phone.
What’s complicating things: With just days to the election, the liberals haven’t shown their hand and the Socialists are publicly sticking by Nicolas Schmit, who can hope at best to be a commissioner, not European Council chief, which tends to be reserved for former prime ministers.
Who do I call when I want Europe … to stop infighting? Michel has been spraying interviews around in recent days. Last night, without naming von der Leyen, he told Euractiv and other outlets that her Commission has been “overly political” and that its position on Israel’s war in Gaza was “not impartial.” VDL won’t be relishing Michel hosting the two June Council meetings that could determine her fate.
FARAGE RUNNING
GUESS WHO’S BACK? Perhaps feeling aggrieved that he can no longer run as an MEP, Brexit bad boy Nigel Farage announced Monday he will stand for a seat in Westminster in the U.K.’s general election on July 4.
U-FLIP: In a major u-turn, Farage announced he will run in the election as the new leader of the right-wing Reform UK party, a move that will surely take votes away from U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives — though the former UKIP leader insisted he also aims to weaken Labour.
Bombshell: Farage’s unexpected comeback, along with polling suggesting Labour is on track to win a majority that would surpass even that of Tony Blair in 1997, makes the front pages of most of the British papers this morning, with the Daily Mail declaring it “Rishi’s darkest hour.” POLITICO’s Esther Webber has more.
The 8th time’s the charm: Farage, who was an MEP five times, has so far made seven unsuccessful attempts to get into the House of Commons. The constituency of Clacton, where he’ll fight for a seat, is pretty much as close as you can get on the British mainland to Brussels. He misses it, really.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
SCOOP — PARLIAMENT PLOTS NEW DIRECTORATES: Power players in the European Parliament are planning to create three new directorates-general focused on legislative work, five sources told Playbook. And that could mean lots of juicy new roles to hand out just after the election.
DG IPOL divided into four: Three new DGs are to be spun out of the DG for Internal Policy, creating a flurry of highly paid director general and director posts. One of the new DGs will focus exclusively on budget and budgetary control matters. The Parliament already has 13 DGs and politicians only recently created a new one in a backroom deal with the Left group to install Alessandro Chiocchetti as secretary-general.
Thumbs down: Insiders say the changes — which are yet to be formally proposed — look badly timed so close to the election and amid all the top jobs haggling. And they could result in substantial budget increases, because promotions cost money.
Thumbs up: Defenders say it won’t create additional posts in real terms or cost a single centime, but that other parts of the 7,000-strong civil service will be trimmed down instead. The changes are urgently needed, they argue, to focus the Parliament’s work on legislation and to strengthen its hand in negotiations with the Commission and Council.
EU ELECTION
WHY AMERICANS SHOULD CARE ABOUT THE EU ELECTION: Obviously, the EU and the U.S. elections aren’t the same — but that didn’t stop my colleague Nick Vinocur from drawing parallels. Instead of Donald Trump, the EU’s got Viktor Orbán, and instead of a two-party system, we’ve got hundreds of national parties and a zombie-style lead candidate system. Nick explains to our cousins across the Atlantic why the election matters and what MEPs spend their time doing. (“Getting lobbied, going on fact-finding missions to fun destinations, participating in orgies, speaking to Chinese and Russian state media, making TikTok videos, and hanging out on a square in Brussels known as ‘Plux.’”)
AWKWARD CAMPAIGN MOMENT FOR VDL: The EPP’s lead candidate Ursula von der Leyen was on the campaign trail in Sweden on Monday, where she tucked into strawberries and cream and wandered around a sparse-looking forest, admiring some of the trees up close. But there was also an awkward moment when one of her Swedish allies — Sweden’s deputy PM Ebba Busch, whose Christian Democrats are one of two Swedish parties in the EPP family — was forced to clarify remarks to the Aftonbladet newspaper in which she appeared to open the door to collaborating with the far-right Identity & Democracy group in the European Parliament. Von der Leyen is campaigning in Finland today.
WHAT CAUSED VDL’S SCREECHING GREEN U-TURN? Speaking of Ursula, as von der Leyen has styled herself in the campaign, my colleague Karl Mathiesen asks why she disavowed and walked back some of her major achievements under her signature Green Deal just before the election. Was she cowed, craven or calculating? And what was Frans Timmermans’ chief of staff doing with a wooden toy? Find out here.
MARÉCHAL TAUNTS HER TANTE: Marion Maréchal, who’s running as the top candidate in France’s Reconquest party, showed off by hugging Italian PM Giorgia Meloni on Monday, in what can only be interpreted as a taunt to her aunt Marine Le Pen, who has publicly tried to get closer to Meloni recently.
Husbands of Italy: Maréchal’s ties to Meloni are stronger than her aunt’s. One of Maréchal’s MEPs, Nicholas Bay, sits with Meloni in Parliament, and her husband Vincenzo Sofo is an MEP for Meloni’s Brothers of Italy.
BABIŠ COULD QUIT RENEW: Czech populist Andrej Babiš may not keep his ANO party in the liberal Renew Europe faction in the European Parliament, Czech paper Deník N reported. “We don’t know in which political group we will end up,” said the billionaire, whose anti-Green Deal, anti-migration pact party is tipped to win the election.
Bad news for Macron: That would heap woe on the Macron-run group, which has already opened up a post-election fight with the Dutch VVD and could splinter after the election. Babiš might be happier sitting with Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s MEPs, but if Orbán’s crew joined the ECR it would leave Babiš with an awkward choice — his main rivals at home, Petr Fiala’s ruling ODS, are mainstays of ECR.
HOW THE ELECTION IS PLAYING ON EUROPE’S RUSSIAN BORDERS: In Estonia, Latvia and Poland, the niceties of EU policy seem remote. They’re overwhelmed with the constant day-to-day reminders of Russia’s aggression and the perpetual air of fear, report Charlie Duxbury and Bartosz Brzeziński in our latest dispatch on the Road to Election 2024.
IN OTHER NEWS
AUSTRIA BACKS MUZZLING HUNGARY: Vienna has supported Belgium’s call to move ahead with a procedure to deprive Hungary of voting rights, in another sign of the frustration at Budapest before the start of its six-month EU Council presidency in July.
Viktor Orbánned: “We expect all 27 members to fully uphold the principles on which our common Union is based,” a spokesperson for Austria’s foreign ministry told POLITICO. “This is particularly true for the incoming EU presidency. With this in mind, we support the rigorous continuation of the Article 7 procedure against Hungary.”
G7 BACK GAZA CEASE-FIRE: G7 countries “fully endorse and will stand behind the comprehensive” cease-fire and hostage release deal that U.S. President Joe Biden has proposed for the conflict in Gaza, their leaders said in a statement on Monday, urging Hamas to accept the deal. The U.S. said it wants the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution backing the proposal, according to Reuters.
BIDEN WON’T ATTEND UKRAINE PEACE SUMMIT: The U.S. will send Vice President Kamala Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan to the two-day event in Lucerne starting June 15, the White House said in a statement on Monday. Ukraine had hoped Biden would attend since he will be in Europe to attend France’s D-Day anniversary celebrations and a meeting of G7 leaders in Italy before the summit. Separately, the Kremlin warned there would be “fatal consequences” if Ukraine used weapons provided by Washington to attack Russia.
RUSSIAN SABOTAGE: Western governments are struggling to respond to what they say is a growing Russian campaign of sabotage attempts including arson at military bases and civilian infrastructure across Europe, the FT reported. “If we don’t respond these attacks are going to increase,” Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkēvičs told the paper.