Athens juggles EU alignment, US interests
As the Ukraine crisis continues to unfold, Athens is navigating a complex diplomatic challenge, balancing its commitment to the European Union with its long-standing relationship with the US. The rapid developments over the past 24 hours – particularly following US President Donald Trump’s communications on the Ukrainian conflict and comments made by Vice President J.D. Vance last Friday – are forcing Greece to tread carefully in its foreign policy.
PM Mitsotakis visiting Thessaloniki
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will travel to Thessaloniki on Wednesday, February 19, and will visit the construction sites of the Flyover and the SNF University Pediatric Hospital of Thessaloniki.
https://www.amna.gr/en/article/884927/PM-Mitsotakis-visiting-Thessaloniki
Eurobarometer: Jobs, prices stress Greek youth
Rising prices and job creation dominate the concerns of young Greeks, according to a new Eurobarometer survey. Among respondents aged 16-30, 43% in Greece cited the economy and employment as top priorities, while 42% focused on inflation and the cost of living.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1261943/eurobarometer-jobs-prices-stress-greek-youth
Due to yesterday’s strike of journalists there is no newspaper circulation today.
TRUMP ECHOES KREMLIN: U.S. President Donald Trump last night falsely claimed that Ukraine started the war that began when Russia invaded it in February 2022. “You should have ended it — three years,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago residence, responding to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s frustration at being excluded from Tuesday’s peace talks between the U.S. and Russia in Saudi Arabia. “You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.” Trump also mocked Zelenskyy’s approval rating and called for Ukrainian elections as part of a peace deal. More on the fallout from the U.S.-Russia talks below.
SPARE A THOUGHT for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is going to miss Wednesday’s regular College of Commissioners meeting in chilly Brussels because she is in … Barbados, boosting the EU’s ties with the Caribbean. Someone’s got to do it! Her No. 2 commissioner, Teresa Ribera, will chair the 9 a.m. meeting, and not for the first time.
GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING: This is Eddy Wax reporting from the EU capital, where there’ll be big policy news today with the launch of the bloc’s new 15-year plan for the future of farming. Playbook caught up with Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen, which we’ll get into shortly. But first, here’s the latest on the efforts to end the war in Ukraine …
DRIVING THE DAY: UKRAINE CRISIS
NEW TALKS COULD LEAD TO … LEADERS TALKING: Diplomats say discussions are underway about holding an extraordinary summit of the EU’s 27 member countries so that leaders can agree a definitive position on how to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since Trump’s bombshell decision last week to open negotiations with Moscow, most of the coordination of Europe’s response has been done in smaller groupings rather than the full European Council.
Costa calling: According to an EU official who spoke to my colleague Jacopo Barigazzi, Council President António Costa is holding bilateral talks with leaders on their next steps. The next official European Council meeting isn’t until March 20 and it was intended to discuss the EU’s wobbly economy. But who knows how many more rounds of talks about the future of Ukraine the U.S. and Russia may have held — without Europe — by then?
Macron convenes another crisis summit today: After the disappointment of Monday’s hastily arranged gathering of European leaders on security and Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting a fresh set of talks in Paris today, with a wider group of allies.
Who is showing up: Monday’s gathering drew France, the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Poland, as well as the leaders of EU institutions and NATO. Today, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Finland, Romania, Sweden and Belgium as well as Canada and Norway are invited, according to Reuters. The latest meeting has not been officially confirmed but is likely to go ahead, two European officials told POLITICO on Tuesday evening.
Howdy in Saudi: The latest planned summit comes in the wake of the first negotiations between Moscow and Washington about Ukraine in Riyadh, which “went well,” according to one of Vladimir Putin’s top aides, Yuri Ushakov. The talks led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lasted 4.5 hours, with both sides agreeing to advance bilateral relations and set up a meeting between Putin and Trump, Csongor Körömi reports.
Quint or you’ll miss it: Europe is not at the table in Riyadh, but it is at least at the other end of the phone. Rubio last night debriefed the foreign ministers of France, Italy and Germany, as well as the EU’s High Representative Kaja Kallas, a format known as the Quint. But a statement from French FM Jean-Noël Barrot revealed … almost nothing.
New Kallas one-liner: “Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps,” the EU’s top diplomat wrote last night.
Out in the cold: Talking of those left out of the negotiations, Bloomberg reports that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pushed for Kyiv to be represented in Riyadh but both Washington and Moscow vetoed it. Reuters reports that Zelenskyy has postponed a trip to Riyadh scheduled for today until March 10 because he doesn’t want to give “legitimacy” to talks about Ukraine’s future from which he was excluded.
Maybe we can talk Putin to death? Macron’s talking shopwith Giorgia Meloni, Donald Tusk, Keir Starmer and others on Monday did nothing to dispel the notion that Trump has abandoned Europe. Will his gab with the B Team change that? Erm, unlikely. And what about a full EU summit? Reuters reported that some countries were annoyed that Monday’s meeting wasn’t a full EU summit. But if Costa simply convenes a summit for the sake of it — without being able to reach a meaningful agreement — it risks plunging the mood in Europe even further into the icy depths.
The EPP thinks it’ll help: Prime ministers from the powerful European People’s Party family were peeved that they weren’t invited to Round One of the Paris talks, according to two EPP sources. They vented their frustration directly at Commission President von der Leyen in a video conference convened by EPP chief Manfred Weber on Tuesday morning. It’s time for more displays of unity, leaders said, as they called for an emergency Council summit in Brussels, rather than small-format meetings. “If we go public, we should do it as an EU27,” one of the EPP sources put it.
Accept exceptions! Another common theme among those Zooming in, reinforced in an EPP statement after the meeting, was the embrace of the idea of exceptions to the EU’s spending rules to boost defense spending.
Still relying on American guarantees? Playbook’s Sarah Wheaton hears that von der Leyen also gave her EPP family a blunt readout of Monday night’s deliberations. While some participants expressed a “readiness” to have a “direct involvement on the ground” to enforce a peace settlement, the Commission president recounted, there was a “unanimous demand that these security agreements have to be backed up by the United States.”
“To be credible,” von der Leyen added, “we have to step up our defense spending.”
She sends free shells to the Kyiv war: Kallas’ External Action Service has circulated plans to send 1.5 million shells to Ukraine this year, Jacopo scooped for POLITICO Pro defense subscribers.
TRUMP DIVIDES VON DER LEYEN’S MAJORITY: There are signs of a new transatlantic dividing line between political factions in the European Parliament that supported the election of the new Commission. Last night, the leaders of the center-right EPP, the Socialists and Democrats, the liberal Renew Europe and the Greens signed on to a joint statement that says that Europe can “no longer fully rely on the United States to defend our shared values and interests,” as well as calling for a sharp uptick in efforts to boost defense.
Missing from the signatories: the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, whose members include Poland’s Law and Justice and Meloni’s Brothers of Italy. The ECR has regularly joined those groups in pro-Ukraine statements in the past, but a group spokesperson said: “We were not fully satisfied with the wording of the assessment of the United States in the text … Now is the time for calm, measured dialogue and a focus on pragmatic solutions.”
FUTURE OF FARMING
HANSEN’S VISION OF PRACTICAL “HOPE”: Luxembourg’s European Commissioner Christophe Hansen, with his Italian counterpart Raffaele Fitto, will present the EU’s vision for agriculture and food at noon today. Hansen, the son of a farmer, told Playbook by phone that the strategy aims to “give back hope” to Europe’s aging and sometimes impoverished farmers, who operate in one of the European economy’s most politically volatile sectors.
“They have suffered a lot not only because of dramatic climate events but … because of prices for their products and also … political stress,” Hansen said.
First big test: Hansen’s EPP campaigned as the party of farmers in last year’s EU Parliament election and this is his first big test of that commitment. “The vision is about setting the path to follow for the next 15 years, let’s say, in order to give the necessary predictability,” he said.
Farm to fork … to grave: Back in 2020, in a world in which the Greens and Socialists were far stronger, this Playbooker remembers the Commission’s ambitious Farm to Fork Strategy proposal, which came with much fanfare and heralded a new era of green food production. Five years on, much of it hasn’t been implemented — and now never will be.
Awkward auction? Hansen dismissed the political premise of the Farm to Fork approach, which he said led to a “big auction” in which different interest groups battled over percentages for the reduction of pesticides and fertilizers before Ursula von der Leyen brought down the ax before the election. The EPP’s years-long counter-attack against the plan’s most eye-catching elements has ultimately smothered the foodie bit of the Green Deal in a new rhetoric of pragmatism. Hansen argued that his new plan is about “practical solutions,” not pie-in-the-sky numerical targets.
Farmer-friendly: Thanks to the EPP, the farming conversation now includes phrases like “building trust” and “working with farmers, not against them.” Still, familiar solutions are proposed …such as higher-tech crops created by gene-editing … encouraging younger people into the profession … trade measures to ensure imported food doesn’t undercut farmers producing to higher standards here …. and slashing EU red tape for farmers.
Mr. Predictable: The unpredictability of the farm sector is a reason it lacks investment, Hansen argued. His challenge for the next five years won’t be to come forward with brash proposals but to keep the EU’s vast farm subsidies scheme topped up with cash, trim excess rules and pass minimal reforms ahead of its post-2027 iteration.
Go deeper: My colleagues Alessandro Ford and Bartosz Brzeziński scooped the latest version of the EU’s agriculture and food vision last night. They report that the Commission has watered down its ambition to tackle the trade in toxic pesticides banned in the EU and softened language on public procurement. Pro subscribers can read more here.
EU AFFAIRS
SCOOP — EU PUSHES “BUY EUROPEAN” QUOTAS: My Pro colleagues have got hold of a draft of the Clean Industrial Deal, the Commission’s plan to make the green transition finally pay off and help the EU’s heavy industry compete with the likes of the U.S. and China.
The strategy encompasses six pillars: lowering energy prices, creating demand, spurring investment, ensuring access to key materials, working on global partnerships and reskilling workers. Its goal: “Present European industry with a stronger business case for large climate-neutral investments in energy-intensive industries and clean tech.”
At the heart of the proposals, due to be unveiled on Feb. 26, are new “Buy European” criteria for climate-friendly industrial products. As part of tweaks to public procurement rules, new low-carbon labels would be introduced for industrial products, beginning as a voluntary scheme to apply to steel before being rolled out to other sectors. Zia Weise has a write-up of the document here.
ŠEFČO’S SHOWTIME IN D.C.: The European Union’s trade chief Maroš Šefčovič is in Washington today for his first meeting with the Trump administration. He’s due to meet Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Kevin Hassett, Trump’s top economic adviser, at 9 p.m. Brussels time for about an hour.
THIRD TERM LUCKY FOR DONOHOE? In amongst his calls for caution over tearing up EU fiscal rules to fund defense, Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe has an eye on the future. In an interview with my colleague Kathryn Carlson, the Irish finance minister said he is planning to run for another term when his current stint ends this summer. He has chaired the group since 2020 and this would be his third two-and-a-half-year term at the helm.
Art of the deal: Donohoe is pitching himself as a bridge-builder at a tense moment for the EU. “I hope I have shown my ability to maintain a common approach, maintain solidarity and cohesion at times of challenge. And it’s clear that we are now in challenging times again,” he told POLITICO, adding that he “would like to continue that approach as things get more challenging.”
IN OTHER NEWS
GERMAN ELECTION: The likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, needs Germany’s smaller parties to crash and burn in Sunday’s national election if he’s to have a strong grip on power, POLITICO’s Hanne Cokelaere and Lucia Mackenzie report today in a deep dive on the state of the race.
If Merz does take power: One of his biggest headaches will be an automotive sector that was once Europe’s economic powerhouse but is now facing a perfect storm of challenges. Jordyn Dahl has the story.
POPE STILL IN HOSPITAL: Billions around the globe will be closely watching for any updates on Pope Francis’ health today after the Vatican last night announced he had contracted pneumonia in both lungs. The 88-year-old was admitted to hospital on Friday with bronchitis. The BBC has more.
“COUP” PLOT IN BRAZIL: A Brazilian prosecutor has claimed that former President Jair Bolsonaro plotted to poison his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as a part of a coup. The prosecutor alleges that Bolsonaro and 33 others were hatching a plan to stay in power after losing the 2022 election, which also included murdering a senior judge. Bolsonaro denies the allegations. The Associated Press has more details.