PM Mitsotakis to attend 4th Ukraine–Southeast Europe Summit in Odessa
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will travel to Odessa on Wednesday, where he will participate, at the invitation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in the 4th Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit. Government sources recall that the Greek premier visited Odessa in March 2024 and note that the city holds special historical significance for Greece, as it was one of the most important centres of Greek education in the diaspora and the seat of the Filiki Eteria-a symbol of deep historical and cultural ties.
The Parliament will have 297 seats instead of 300 as three MPs lost their parliamentary status
Following the two decisions of the Electoral Court yesterday, the Parliament will now operate with 297 MPs instead of 300, as three MPs of the “Spartiates”, namely Vassilis Stigas, Petros Dimitriadis and Alexandros Zerveas, have lost their parliamentary status. In particular, the Electoral Court, chaired by the President of the Council of State, Michalis Pikramenos, unanimously upheld the objections of the three former MPs in question and ruled, inter alia, that there had been a deception of the electorate as the hidden leader of ‘Spartiates’ was Ilias Kasidiaris.
Tsipras slams government, calls for progressive unity
Former Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has accused the conservative government of deepening social inequalities and fostering corruption, urging the country’s fragmented center-left to unite behind a new political vision.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/politics/1272081/tsipras-slams-government-calls-for-progressive-unity
Greece’s inflation rate rises to 2.5% in May
Greece’s rate of inflation accelerated significantly in May, as it increased by 2.5%, from 2% in April and compared to an increase of 2.4% in May 2024, according to the Hellenic Statistical Authority.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1272036/greeces-inflation-rate-rises-to-2-5-in-may
ATHEX: Index ends another day on a peak
Greek stocks continued their climb for a fifth day in a row on Tuesday, following the long weekend, with banks showing some recovery to lead blue chips to gains. The benchmark ended the day on the session’s high and turnover showed some healthy growth. The medium-term trend remains positive for local stocks, despite the short-term profits traders are expected to reap during this week.
https://www.ekathimerini.com/economy/1272039/athex-index-ends-another-day-on-a-peak
KATHIMERINI: Oil companies will be co-responsible for the control of fuel stations
TA NEA: Special Elections Court forms a 297-member parliament: Solomonic solution and abundance of questions
EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON: The EU finances Israel’s war machine killing Gaza with the guarantee of Greek PM Mitsotakis
RIZOSPASTIS: Everyone must help reinforce solidarity towards the Palestinian people
KONTRA NEWS: Former PM Tsipras presents manifesto for a progressive government
DIMOKRATIA: Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Valinakis: PM Mitsotakis is backing down regarding national issues
NAFTEMPORIKI: Statute of limitations for tax crimes doubles to 10 years
DRIVING THE DAY: TUSK TESTS POLISH CONFIDENCE
ELECTION HANGOVER: Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk is still nursing his wounds after his center-right ally narrowly lost this month’s presidential election to right-wing nationalist Karol Nawrocki. The defeat probably dooms many of the Tusk coalition’s planned reforms to the judiciary, abortion rights and same-sex partnerships. Once the EU’s poster boy for vanquishing far-right dragons, an injured Tusk needs to get back on the front foot.
Confidence trick: In an effort to regain his mojo, Tusk called a constitutionally completely needless vote of confidence in the government, which is taking place in parliament today. He’s expected to win easily, given his coalition has a clear majority among lawmakers, but — as the presidential election showed — there’s always room for an upset.
Unhappy families: Tusk’s coalition partners have been arguing over who was to blame for Nawrocki’s shock defeat of Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, by 51 to 49 percent. Some think the loss was Tusk’s own fault and there’s even chatter among a few of his supposed allies about replacing him (potentially even with Trzaskowski, though that doesn’t seem like the smartest pick just now). Polls suggest the country is neatly split on whether Tusk should stay or go.
Win again, begin again: The point of today’s confidence vote is to show these restless types that Tusk is still the boss. Reasserting his authority by winning the vote would, he hopes, draw a line under the presidential failure and allow the ruling coalition to come together and restate (or rewrite) its program for the next two years in government.
Political suicide: Tusk will “survive” the vote because “it would be political suicide” for members of the coalition to put the government at risk when the far right is surging in the polls, according to Piotr Buras, head of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “This vote is important to consolidate this coalition short term, but it does not answer any long-term questions about the future,” Buras said.
The bigger task facing Tusk and co. is figuring out how to handle the new president in a way that gives them a chance of keeping power and defeating the Law and Justice party and its extreme rightwing allies at the next parliamentary election in 2027. That means having some reforms and achievements in the bank to show voters.
Hurry up already: “We understand that we need to speed up,” Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka, Tusk’s deputy EU minister, told POLITICO’s Gabriel Gavin. “We have the next two years to convince Poles that they should trust us again in 2027. For the moment we see all the parties in the coalition will vote in favor [of] the government.”
Get it together: “We are living in times which are unstable globally, so we need to work together,” said Sobkowiak-Czarnecka. “I hope the new president will cooperate. We can’t afford time to quarrel with the president on new acts of law.” For more on Tusk’s travails, read this primer by Wojciech Kość.
METSOLA’S MALTEASER MOMENT
WE’RE HIRING: Malta’s center-right opposition Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech resigned on Tuesday after flopping badly in the polls. His failure to dent the prospects of Labour PM Robert Abela opens up a potential role for an ambitious politician with an eye on a future big job. Plenty of people in Malta (and beyond) reckon European Parliament President Roberta Metsola would fit the bill.
The EU’s most famous Maltese politician is 46 and has long been linked to a tilt at top-tier national politics, potentially as a precursor to a return to Brussels in the future as a candidate to run the Commission or the European Council.
All in the timing: Metsola’s backers thought the stars might align perfectly in a couple of years’ time, with her term as Parliament president due to end in January 2027, two months before Malta is expected to hold an election.
Grech’s resignation wrecked that timetable. Metsola must now make a potentially career-defining choice in the coming days. Politicians rarely get to choose the timing of their big breaks and this one will be particularly awkward for the Parliament president, as the leadership vacancy in her party has come less than a year after she was reelected to the role.
Will she, won’t she? According to sources familiar with the matter in Parliament, Metsola remains deeply committed to her current post. It’s rare to get the gig twice and she’s signed up to see out her full term. That, plus all the uncertainty around a potential election run in Malta (she won’t want to lead her party to defeat), might make her reluctant to swap Brussels and Strasbourg for a scrappy fight in Valletta.
But … it’s a teaser: Metsola is only human, and like any normal person, she’s weighing her options. If she still aspires to lead the Commission or the Council one day, a big job in domestic politics (ideally as PM) is seen as an essential qualification. She has yet to comment on the Maltese vacancy, and still has a little time to make up her mind if she’s going to run. But it’s going to be measured in days, not years.
Don’t leave us! “Roberta Metsola has reached heights once thought impossible for a Maltese national and she is an unparalleled credit to our country,” gushed David Casa, the leading MEP for Malta’s Nationalist Party (from which Metsola also hails). “She carries a vital responsibility and is doing an exceptional job 10 months into a role that honors Europe, Malta and Partit Nazzjonalista. And she can continue serving the best interests of all three as European Parliament president. I haven’t spoken to her but as a friend and someone who knows Roberta, I know how deeply committed she is to what she has been elected to do.”
Political cover: Conservative EPP leader Manfred Weber echoed the point, though he left the door open to Metsola to make a career move if she decides she wants to.
“We understand that there are voices asking for Roberta Metsola to fill the leadership role in Malta, that is of course up to her and her party,” Weber told POLITICO’s Max Griera. “But I know how committed she is as president of the European Parliament and understand that for a country like Malta having their national in this leadership position is critical and it is critical for Europe. So on a personal level, we are very proud of everything that she has achieved, but there is much yet to do with her as president in these critical times as we build Europe into a stronger and more prosperous Union.”
A must-watch: Metsola just happens to be speaking at 12:30 p.m. today at a POLITICO event, “Reskilling Europe,” where she will be on stage for a chat with Santander boss Ana Botín. Later this evening, the process for choosing a new leader will begin when the Nationalist Party holds an executive committee meeting back in Malta.
SANCTIONS TARGET PUTIN’S FOSSIL FUELS, AGAIN
SHIPS AHOY: Ursula von der Leyen and the EU’s senior diplomat Kaja Kallas presented their plan for the bloc’s 18th package of Russia sanctions on Tuesday, with the usual stern language about stopping Vladimir Putin and hitting his war machine where it hurts. In this case, it’s in his oil and gas revenues, as well as on Russia’s “shadow fleet” of rusty old tankers creaking around the world’s sea lanes to avoid sanctions. Full details here.
Again? Ukraine’s EU allies have been cutting back on purchases of Russian fossil fuels since 2022, but have still not entirely stopped them buying what Putin has to sell. That is, morally, a ridiculous contradiction. American policymakers are also pushing the same agenda.
What now: The sanctions package, if adopted, will hit the financial institutions Moscow uses to bring in cash from abroad and support the lowering of the G7 price cap on oil to $45 per barrel, from $60. The aim is to reach a G7-wide deal when the group’s leaders meet in Canada next week. EU member countries are expected to sign off on the Commission’s latest sanctions proposal swiftly, with a deal expected before the end of this month.
Kill Nord Stream until it’s dead: One of the most significant moves targets the stricken Nord Stream pipelines, Gabriel Gavin writes in to say. The project will face unprecedented sanctions if capitals sign off on them, with new blacklists for companies involved in the operation of the vast Moscow-backed gas link, which was crippled by a series of blasts in 2022.
Blockers: Hungary and Slovakia have already publicly stated opposition to the sanctions plan, while a handful of other capitals have expressed concerns.
13 COUNTRIES ASK EU ACTION AGAINST RUSSIA OVER GPS JAMMING: In a letter to the European Commission seen by POLITICO, 13 EU governments called for immediate action against Russia and Belarus, who are considered responsible for causing GPS jamming and spoofing that endangers air and sea navigation.
What’s new? The letter — signed by Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark and Romania — represents a change in tone from EU governments. Until recently, they were reluctant to blame Russia for causing radio interference. POLITICO’s Tommaso Lecca has more for POLITICO Cybersecurity and Data Protection, Defense, Mobility and Technology subscribers.
EU DOESN’T ADD RUSSIA TO MONEY LAUNDERING LIST: The EU once again left Russia off its list of countries it considers at high risk of money laundering and terrorism financing, though it added Monaco and Venezuela. The EU also removed the United Arab Emirates and Gibraltar from the list. Giovanna Faggionato has more.
GERMAN SPD DOVES: Several dozen SPD figures, mostly from the party’s left, call for a shift in Germany’s security policy in a paper obtained by Stern. They want diplomacy with Russia, reject new U.S. missiles in Germany, and say a 5-percent defense spending target is “irrational.”
UKRAINE’S NATO PROSPECTS: From Washington to Warsaw, there’s a growing chorus of politicians who want to slam the door on Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO, but Lithuania “will never give up” on Kyiv’s membership prospects, its Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė told POLITICO’s Jacopo Barigazzi.
MIDDLE EAST
ABBAS VS. HAMAS: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for Hamas to “hand over its weapons,” immediately free all hostages and cease ruling Gaza. That’s according to a letter signed by him and addressed to Emmanuel Macron and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, which the French presidency released on Tuesday. Macron and MBS will next week co-chair a U.N. conference to explore the creation of a Palestinian state. The New York Times has more.
U.K. SANCTIONS ISRAELI MINISTERS: Britain is to sanction two Israeli ministers for comments the U.K. government said amounted to “inciting extremist violence” against Palestinians. The assets of Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be frozen and the pair will also face travel bans under the sanctions.
GRETA VS. TRUMP: Sweden’s Greta Thunberg got into another verbal spat with Donald Trump after he described her as “strange” and “angry” over her attempted mission to deliver aid to Gaza. “I think the world needs many more young angry women, to be honest,” she said.
IN OTHER NEWS
FRENCH PORN CLAMPDOWN LATEST: French Digital Minister Clara Chappaz’s office told POLITICO that Paris is considering designating social media sites such as Bluesky, Mastodon and Reddit — all of which allow the distribution of adult content — as porn platforms, obliging them to implement stringent age verification requirements. Details here.
GREEK DILEMMA: Greeks have plenty of reasons to be angry with their political masters, but fury over a series of government scandals has not translated into votes for opposition parties, reports Nektaria Stamouli.
2 SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON OVER DAPHNE MURDER: A Maltese court sentenced Jamie Vella and Robert Agius to life in prison on Tuesday, after they were convicted of supplying the bomb used in the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. Euronews has a write-up.
BRITAIN’S BUDGETS: U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will set out the government’s spending review today, as she aims to fend off the threat from Nigel Farage’s surging Reform UK party. The problem is the government doesn’t have much money to play with, given Britain’s high levels of debt and Reeves’ promise not to raise key taxes. POLITICO primer here.
LA CURFEW: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass imposed a curfew in downtown LA overnight, seeking to avert looting and vandalism as immigration protests stretch into their fifth day. The move came after the Trump administration ordered Marines and California National Guard troops to the region over the objections of Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom. POLITICO has more.